Under the Wire (32 page)

"Come on." He held out a hand, helped her to her feet. "Let's move."

He glanced at his watch, felt his gut knot. There was no point in telling her about the deadline. No point in telling her that if they didn't get to Adam and the Muhandiramalas, they would be executed in less than eight hours.

Kandy

Ethan glanced at Darcy as he spoke with Dallas on the SAT phone. "Ramanathan wants to do what? ...

"Holy shit." He shook his head when Dallas finished.

"Yeah … Yeah. I can arrange a call. Give me," he checked his watch, "fifteen minutes. I'll be back in touch."

"What?" Darcy asked when Ethan had hung up.

"Ramanathan wants to join his military forces with the Sinhalese military and take out the boys who stole his howitzer."

Darcy blinked. "Say what?"

"I know." Ethan scratched his jaw. "We came here worried about starting up the civil war again and it looks like we might have actually backed into a way to put the Tigers and the Sinhalese on the same side of a fight."

"Why would Ramanathan want to do that?"

"Simple. He wants his gun back. And Dallas honestly thinks the rebel leader is tired of the fighting. Maybe he was looking for an excuse to end it and this dropped into his lap."

Ethan shook his head again. "Get Griffin on the phone, babe. We're about to make history."

"And Adam? The Muhandiramalas?" Her worried look echoed his thoughts. "Where do they all fit into this?"

He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the top of her head. "I wish I knew. All we can do now is hope we can get this thing off the ground in the next few hours and beat the deadline. If we have any chance of finding them, my money's on it being tied to the boys who stole the big gun."

He checked his watch. They were down to a little less than seven hours until time ran out. "Go ahead. Call Griff. Then I'll try to reach Manny again."

And in the meantime, Ethan would do a lot of praying that this new development worked for them instead of against them.

On the road to Elkaduwa

"I don't need to be coddled," Lily snapped, a little too sharply, when Manny suggested they stop again and take five.

She regretted her waspish tongue immediately. But she didn't want to stop. She wanted to walk. Hell, she wanted to run. To her son. Away from the soldiers who were bound to be trailing them.

Away from the reality that when the smoke cleared and she put their situation in perspective, she was a healthcare professional and, for the second time in her life, she'd had unprotected sex with a man she barely knew. That it had been the same man both times was little consolation. That it had been mind-bending, perception-altering sex was no longer at issue. That he'd wanted her with the same uncontrollable craving as she'd wanted him didn't hold much sway, either.

Neither did his total lack of comment about what had happened in the aftermath of the storm they'd literally ridden out in that abandoned temple.

And what
had
happened? Other than the two of them connecting with a physical release that had been inevitable given their level of tension and forced confinement.

Step after step, as they'd slogged through the jungle, her mind had been spinning in directions she didn't want it to go. Back to the feel of his hands on her skin. The electric sensation of his mouth. The weight of him heavy and deep inside her.

The feel of his medal between her breasts.

It had been seventeen years since she'd felt the magical give and flow between their bodies. She'd thought, over the years, that she'd remembered big. Like remembering a special place from her childhood as being huge, then going back as an adult and finding it small. The truth was, her memory hadn't been large enough to accommodate the feelings—acute, consuming, incredible—that she'd felt when Manny made love to her again.
 
Just like she hadn't remembered the depth of her feelings for him.

So no, she didn't want to stop. No, she didn't want to rest. And she'd been pushing herself to the limit since they'd stumbled onto a road thirty minutes ago.

At least it was a road of sorts. They'd been dodging muddy potholes and crawling over trees that a recent windstorm had toppled.

She started climbing over another downed tree that blocked their way. Manny's hand caught her arm and stopped her. She snapped her gaze to his.

"Easy," he said after a quiet moment. "Just ease up a bit, okay? No good is going to come of you dropping from exhaustion in this heat."

She opened her mouth to argue, but it caught up with her then. The humidity. The suffocating furnace of the sun. The realization that he was right. She needed a break. She needed to rehydrate. And by the looks of him, he did, too.

She nodded. Sank down on a stump and dug into her pack for another dose of antibiotics and some pain medication. "How's your head?"

"Don't worry about my head."

"Yeah, well, it's easier than worrying about whether or not we're lost."

"We're not lost."

She unscrewed the cap on a water bottle and handed it to him.

He shook his head.

Fine. She'd drink first.

Only when she had drunk her fill did he accept the bottle and take the meds.

"If we're not lost, then what are we?" She ignored his wince when she applied topical antibiotic ointment to his cut and checked the stitches. "And don't say we're fine, because we aren't. We've got no transportation, no way to communicate with Ethan or Dallas, no clear idea of how to get to Adam, and no way of knowing if we
can
get to him before something happens to him."

Manny scrubbed a hand over his dark, stubbled jaw and gauged the angle of the sun. "But we are having fun, right?"

She didn't want to smile at his deadpan delivery. She didn't even know he had a deadpan delivery. Mostly he did brooding. At least, Manny the man did brooding. Manny the boy had been full of the devil, quick with a grin, easy with a laugh. Deadpan hadn't been on his list of character traits, either.

Which was probably why she gave it up and smiled for him. Then apologized.

"I'm sorry I'm being so bitchy. It's just—"

"It's just that you're worried about Adam."

She looked down at her hands. Nodded.

"And you're wondering," he said in such a reflective tone her head came up, "about what happened back there. In the temple. About what it meant. What it means."

She held his deep, dark gaze. Yeah. She'd been wondering. As understatements went, it was one for the record books.

"Me, too," he said, then touched a hand to her face, caressed her jaw. "When this is over, we'll sort it out, okay?"

She closed her eyes, nodded again, and damn, she was sick of blinking back tears.

"Come here,
querida,"
he whispered, and drew her into his arms. And held her. Beneath a sun that beat down as relentlessly as her fear for Adam's life.

She leaned into Manny, embraced his promise as much as the sheltering strength of his body.

We'll sort it out.

A sigh let go inside of her that felt bigger than she was.

Yes. They'd sort it out.

In the meantime, they
would
find Adam.

Manny squeezed her hard, let her go. "No less than five, no more than twenty," he said, reminding her that less than five minutes of rest did no good, but more than twenty could cause muscles to tighten. Reminding her that he was more bruised and battered than she was.

Sweat and dirt stained his shirt, and other than his lack of sunburn, he looked every bit as beat as she felt. And so outrageously gorgeous it was tempting to hit him just on general principles. She had to look like the wreck of the
Hesperus.

"I'm ready," she said instead, then turned her face to his to see him watching her with a look that spoke of longing and encouragement and even, she thought, a little bit of pride.

"Mother bear," he said approvingly. "Adam is fortunate to be your cub."

Then, with his thumb lightly caressing her cheek, he kissed her. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't even tinged with heat. What it was, was necessary. The look on his face said so. He'd just needed to kiss her. To connect. To affirm. To assure her that all would be well. To encourage her to trust him to know what to do. To sort things out. But more important, at the moment, to find their son.

"Let's go." Manny twisted around to pick up his rifle and pack.

That's when Lily saw it. And her heart rate picked up to a flat-out gallop.

"Is that what I think it is?"

He stopped short when she latched on to his arm. He glanced ahead on the road—probably figuring the bad guys had found a bridge by now and come looking for them.

But it wasn't a bad guy or a tree blocking the road.

"Depends," he said, moving in front of her like a protective shield. "I'm thinking elephant. Are we close?"

"A little too close," Lily said, peeking around his broad shoulder.

Even at a zoo, she'd never been this close to approximately six tons and ten feet of bull elephant. And she knew it was a bull because of his size and massive tusks.

"What do we do?" she asked, then breathed a sigh of relief when a young man walked out from behind the elephant and lifted a hand in greeting.

He wasn't any more than five feet tall. His skin was dark, his teeth blazing white. He wore the traditional baggy white mahout garb. In contrast, below thin calves and bony ankles he wore a pair of Air Jordans that were almost as big as he was.

"Su-bhah dhah-hah-vah-lahk."
Good afternoon,
he said, approaching them with a grin. A grin that grew even broader when he walked close enough to see them clearly.

"You speak English?" he asked as the elephant stopped directly behind him, the massive trunk snuffling around in his pockets.

"Nah-vah-thin-nu."
Stop,
he scolded the pestering pachyderm, and absently shoved the wandering trunk away.

"English. Yes," Manny said with a watchful eye on the elephant as a toque macaque swung down from a tree and landed in the middle of the elephant's back.

"I don't like that sucker on general principle," Manny said under his breath, eyeing the monkey as he screeched and scratched his armpit and stared Manny straight in the eye.

"American?" the mahout asked, sounding hopeful.

Lily nodded. "Yes. We're Americans."

The young man almost jumped for joy. His grin split his face and he clapped his hands. "I love America!! 'Go ahead; make my day,' " he said in heavily accented English. "Clint Eastwood, yes?
Sudden Impact.
I love American movie."

He spouted off several more movie quotes before Manny could quiet him down.

"Look. We're in a bind. We need to get to Elkaduwa." He pulled out the map and pointed to their destination.

Another broad grin. " 'That's thirty minutes away. I'll be there in ten.' Harvey Keitel, yes?
Pulp Fiction.
What a movie. I am good, yes?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you're great." Manny tapped the map again. "We're here, right? How long before we get there?"