The Treasure (4 page)

As they headed out of town, her unease rose. Her guide was driving much too fast and seemed extremely nervous.

Looking out the window, Amelia pushed down her apprehension, reminded herself this was what she wanted.

An hour later, she again questioned her wisdom in hiring Mr. Newton, who was crouched in the mud changing a flat tire. Heaving a sigh, Amelia brushed a wet strand of hair off her cheek and looked up and down the narrow, deserted road. Giant towering trees lined the sides, connecting at the tops and forming a tunnel. But not enough to protect them from the rain that had started falling minutes after they left Tahua.

“Okay, give me those bolts.” Her guide held out his hand.

She opened her palm to reveal the rusted lug nuts she’d been holding for the past half-hour as warm rain poured down on her and turned the road to mud, ruining her new hiking boots. While Mr. Newton tried to change the flat tire. While he
cursed
at it. Like that was going to help.

As he secured the bolts, Amelia waited patiently while her boots sunk further into the mud. Her clothes clung uncomfortably to her skin, her mascara surely running. This was so not what she had planned — what was that? Something caught her eye down the road and she squinted to look closer.

“There’s a car coming,” she said when an old, battered, pick-up truck came into view. “Maybe they can help.”

Don’s head snapped up. The rumble of an engine got louder. “Get in the car,” he said, working like a madman to get the spare finished.

Now
he was in a hurry. She stepped into the road and waved her arms. “No, I’ll flag them down.”

“You idiot,” Mr. Newton hissed, grabbing her arm.

“Hey,” Amelia protested. “We could use the help.”

The truck ambled to a stop beside them and two men got out. Amelia recognized them immediately from the bar. The two that had been staring at her. Before she knew what was happening, they had drawn guns and had them pointed at her and Mr. Newton.

Terrified, Amelia backed away from the gun pointed at her head, but Mr. Newton blocked her retreat. “What’s going on?”

One of the men spoke in rapid Spanish. The only word she understood was
mapa
.

“You’re not getting it, Alejo,” Mr. Newton said with menace that slid uncomfortably down her spine. He pulled her closer to his body, his arm going around her neck. In his other hand, he held a gun, pointing back at the two men.

“Where did you get that?” Amelia gasped.

All three men started talking at once, in Spanish, so she couldn’t understand them. Anger lit up the argument as they waved their guns at her. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

Red-faced, the man holding the biggest gun — which was not her guide — started shouting and waving it in her face. Terrified, she pushed against Mr. Newton. Did he really think yelling back was helping? Someone help her, she was in the middle of a shouting match between three very angry, very dangerous looking men. She had to find a way out. But Mr. Newton was holding her so tightly she couldn’t free herself.

Through the rain she saw another vehicle approaching. Her heart turned over in her chest.
Please, no more bad guys with guns.

The shouting escalated. Now both men were waving their guns at her and her guide was waving his gun back.

Glancing sideways, she saw the vehicle roll to a stop a short distance away. The three men were yelling at each other so loudly they didn’t notice. Amelia barely got a glimpse of the driver before Mr. Newton pulled her off to the side and took a threatening step toward the other two, dragging her with him.

The three looked ready to come to blows now, making threatening gestures with their guns.

A shot rang through the air.

• • •

Amelia screamed and ducked. Her guide’s grip loosened and she dove for cover, expecting to feel the pain of a bullet as her life flashed before her eyes. She landed in the mud, stunned to find herself still alive.

Frantic, she patted her chest, her legs, looking for blood but found nothing except sticky mud. Looking up she saw the three men were still standing, their attention turned to the man down the road.

Seeing her on the ground, Mr. Newton bent toward her, his expression furious. Amelia started to scoot away, but a loud voice halted both their movements.

“Don’t even think about touching her, Newton,” Brody warned, his voice carrying across the distance. “My gun is bigger than yours and I’m having a real bad week. That goes for you too, Alejo. Tell your brother to back the hell off. Miss Sawyer, come over here.
Now
.”

Shaking, heart beating furiously against her ribs, Amelia scrambled backwards. She never thought she’d be happy to hear Brody Kern’s gruff voice, but right now, it was like a song from heaven.

Somehow she managed to get to her feet and run on wobbly legs to where Brody waited.

When she was only a few steps away, Brody stepped out, grabbed her by the hand and pulled her behind him, using his body as a shield. Since he was the closest thing to safety she had, Amelia stayed behind him and wrapped her arms around her waist to stop trembling.

“Throw your weapons into the bush to your left,” Brody ordered.

Amelia couldn’t see to know if the men obeyed or not and she didn’t care to look. She wasn’t sure she could. Fear froze her limbs.

“That’s good. Now, I’m going to get Miss Sawyer’s things out of the truck and you all are going to lay flat on the ground while I do it. So, down you go.”

Brody looked over his shoulder briefly to say, “Get in,” before he strode away.

Once Amelia got her limbs working, it took her all of five seconds to jump inside the Land Rover and lock the door. Shivering, she watched through the windshield as Brody walked up to the three men glaring daggers at him. Unaffected, Brody opened the door to Mr. Newton’s truck and grabbed her bags without taking his eyes off them. Then he walked backwards toward her.

As he approached, Amelia saw a flash of silver as he tossed something into the jungle. Mr. Newton jumped to his feet and started shouting again. Brody tossed her bags in the backseat, jumped in, slammed into reverse, and spun the vehicle around. Seconds later, they careened down the road.

Brody flipped the heater on high. His knuckles were white where his hand gripped the wheel. A muscle worked in his jaw.

“I — I can’t s — stop shaking.” Her teeth chattered, her mind numb. “I — can’t — think straight.”

“You’re in shock.” Brody reached over the seat and dropped a leather flight jacket into her lap. “Put that on. There’s a flask in the pocket. Drink it.”

Doing as she was told, Amelia eagerly pulled the jacket on. It was three sizes too big and smelled like Brody so she snuggled in, using it to warm her frozen body. Brody aimed the heat vents directly at her. Sweat beaded his brow but he didn’t complain. She dug a silver flask out of the pocket and uncapped it. The word
Ace
was engraved on the front and below it:
Fight on and fly on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of fuel, to the last beat of the heart.
She traced the words with her finger. “What does this mean?”

Brody kept his eyes trained on the road. “Nothing. Just drink it.”

Obviously he wasn’t going to share any explanations, so she lifted it to her lips and took a sip, coughing when whisky burned its way down her throat.

She clapped a hand on her chest. “It’s good.”

Brody didn’t comment, simply kept driving in stony silence. Amelia tucked her hand inside the jacket sleeve, looking over her shoulder and out the back window to see if they were being followed. Images of being held at gunpoint filled her head and she started shaking again. She took another drink.

“They aren’t following,” Brody said. “I threw their keys are in the jungle.”

Amelia nodded, head beginning to swim. “And Mr. Newton didn’t have the tire on yet,” she murmured. “I feel … why did he do this? He had a gun.” The last words came out a whisper.

Brody slammed a hand on the wheel, startling her. Stomping on the brakes, he brought the vehicle to a sliding stop in the middle of the road and turned a hard glare on her. “What did you think was going to happen when you started flashing around the map?”

“I wasn’t flashing around the map. Wait, my map?” Amelia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Are you really that naïve?”

Amelia pressed against the door at his harsh question. Tears filled her eyes, her nerves dangerously close to snapping. “I guess I am. Stop bullying me. It’s a map. That’s all. Drawn by my aunt, for heaven’s sake. She gave it to
me
so I could have an adventure like she did. It was meant for me so why is everyone suddenly fighting over it? Anyway, it’s your fault that those men were pointing guns at me.”

Brody’s look was incredulous. “My fault? What the hell are you talking about?”

Amelia swiped a tear off her cheek and took a sip from the half-empty flask. “If you hadn’t turned me away, then I never would have had to hire Mr. Newton as my guide. This is not what I had in mind when I came down here.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Her eyes raked over him. “Not you.” She took another drink. “Not this.” Her breath hitched. “Not guns pointed at my face.”

Memories of those guns invaded her head and tears spilled over her lashes before she could stop them.

“Ah, hell. Don’t do that. Don’t cry,” Brody said gruffly.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Amelia mumbled with an inelegant sniffle. “Oh, why did I think I could do this?”

Helpless, Brody stared at the woman sobbing next to him. Big, gut-wrenching, broken sobs that tore at his chest. What was he supposed to do? Tears always threw him for a loop. He’d been around women who cried, but this one, for some damn reason, was getting to him.

“Look,” he heard himself say. “Just stop crying. We’ll work this out. I’ll take you back to my place, get you cleaned up, and we’ll figure out what the next step is.”

Wet, bright green eyes met his. “You would do that for me?”

Offended, he said, “I offered, didn’t I?”

“Yes. But you don’t sound very happy about it.”

“You’re in danger and I’m good with danger. And unless Pandora dropped you another name, I’m all you have.”

The tears slowed, although her creamy skin still held a gray pallor. Brody looked away before she caught him staring at her ruby red lips. The best thing he could do for her was get her to a safe location. Then he’d get her safely out of the country before anyone else came looking for the map. His original plan, only without the complications.

“I don’t see that I have any other choice,” Amelia murmured, resting her head against the window. “Can you turn up the heat?”

Sweat trickled down his face, but Brody cranked up the heat anyway. As he continued driving toward his place, he noticed — with relief — that Amelia had stopped crying. She stared out the window, shaking beneath his jacket, which hung limply on her slender frame. She looked delicate as a rare jungle orchid sitting there and something unwanted tightened in his chest.

Pandora hadn’t been delicate or soft. Beautiful, stubborn and borderline crazy when it came to taking risks, but never feeble. She drank many locals under the table the night she was in town and somehow suffered no hangover the next morning. An old ancient remedy, she told him when she showed up at his hangar at sunrise, looking bright and chipper.

“So what’s your story? Besides being too damn trusting.”

“I was named after Amelia Earhart,” she said, with a deprecating laugh. “She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Solo, mind you. She had to land in Ireland due to strong winds but she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. By Congress. Can you imagine?”

Brody assumed the question was rhetorical.

“Did I tell you I have two sisters? Caroline and Brittany. They’re both very successful. Caroline owns her own bed and breakfast, and Brit is a tea expert. People travel from miles away just to sample her teas. Anyway, Amelia Earhart was the most obvious choice since she was most like my aunt. Did you know Aunt Pandora was a pilot?”

How could he forget? When Pandora came in to charter his services, she’d wanted his plane, not him. “Yes, I knew that,” he said, glancing over to see Amelia’s eyes close. Shock was wearing off.
Crash time.

“She was amazing. No one could fly a plane like she could. She was the bravest, strongest woman I knew,” she murmured, voice drifting. “My sisters are like her. Especially Brittany. She lives a very exciting life. Travels all over the world … she should’ve been given the name instead of me … ”

Brody looked over to see she had fallen asleep midsentence, the flask gripped tightly in her hand. Forcing himself to relax, he concentrated on the road. Rain drizzled down and probably would for the rest of the day. Rainy season in the jungle was exactly what it implied. One could get used to anything if they tried hard enough.

Wait a minute … Brody’s hands tightened on the wheel. He cast a glance at his softly snoring passenger. She said ‘was’ when she spoke of her aunt.
Was
the bravest women she knew? Which meant …

“Damn,” Brody murmured. Some of Amelia Sawyer’s pieces fell into place. No wonder she reacted so strongly to the situation. She had lost her aunt, who obviously meant a lot to her. He should have pieced it together sooner, but she’d distracted him with her soft smile and pretty green eyes.

Driving idly, he wondered when it had happened. Knowing Pandora, it was probably in some far away country doing something reckless. Nothing got in her way when she wanted something. She had no regard for her own safety, as he experienced firsthand.

Brody rubbed his forehead. Pandora had popped in and out of his life, but she had made an impression. He glanced over at Amelia and knew he had to protect her better than he had Pandora. Seeing her in the middle of the Torres brothers and Don Newton almost gave him a heart attack. The fact she was there was his fault. He should have driven her to the airport and made sure she got on a plane.

Although he suspected she intentionally misled him to prevent him from doing just that. She had a little more of Pandora in her than she thought. And he wasn’t letting what happened with Pandora happen to her. That, he vowed.