You are cordially invited to…

Honor thy pledge

to the

Miami Confidential Agency

Do you hereby swear to uphold

the law to the best of your ability…

To maintain the level of integrity of this agency

by your compassion for victims, loyalty to your

brothers and sisters and courage under fire…

To hold all information and identities

in the strictest confidence…

Or die before breaking the code?

Bridal Op
Dana Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I would like to dedicate this book to my friend Maggie Scillia.

Thank you for all your help and support! I would also like to thank my

wonderful editor, Allison Lyons, and the fabulous writers I was lucky to

be working with on Miami Confidential: B.J. Daniels, Kelsey Roberts

and Mallory Kane. My most sincere appreciation to Tracy Montoya, one

of my favorite writers, for helping me with those Spanish expressions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author Dana Marton lives near Wilmington, Delaware. She has been an avid reader since childhood and has a master’s degree in writing popular fiction. When not writing, she can be found either in her garden or her home library. For more information on the author and her other novels, please visit her Web site at www.danamarton.com.

She would love to hear from her readers via e-mail: DanaMarton@yahoo.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Isabelle Rush—Miami Confidential agent and spokeswoman for Weddings Your Way. Used to doing things on her own terms, Isabelle refuses to let a man tell her what to do or how to do it. Including Rafe.

Rafe Montoya—A former DEA agent who is now working for Miami Confidential. He’s admired Isabelle Rush as a coworker, but now that they’re on a mission together, can he handle the sparks they’re igniting?

Sonya Botero—A society belle about to be married to Juan DeLeon. She was kidnapped in front of Weddings Your Way.

Juan DeLeon—Sonya’s fiancé wields considerable political power in Ladera, which earned him a number of enemies.

Maggie DeLeon—Juan’s ex-wife lives in an insane asylum. Is she as broken as she seems, or is she living for revenge?

Alberto Martinez—A political opponent of Juan DeLeon who would like nothing more than to see Juan crushed. But how far would he go to distract Juan from politics?

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Prologue

Miami, U.S.A.

June 20, 2006

Jose Fuentes waited in the back of the vintage limousine for his victim and watched the street, aware of a number of things at once: the expensively dressed man and woman exiting Weddings Your Way—looking less than happy—the few cars passing by, the comfort of the spacious backseat beneath him. His fingers fluttered over the black leather in a soft caress. Maybe when this was all over he would get his own limo. Or maybe not. Better not draw attention to his person or his wealth.

And when he was done with Botero, he would be wealthy.

Sunshine reflected off the pavement and the white walls of exclusive villas; palm trees swayed in the breeze coming off the bay. His window down a crack, he could smell the water. He liked Miami. Someday, he might come back here on vacation.

His phone chirped. Annoyance replaced his pleasant mood as he recognized the number.

Good work took time.

“Patience,” he said as he picked up the call.

“You don’t have her yet?” The voice was full of censure.

“She’s a few minutes late.” He pulled the cell phone from his ear to glance at the exact time displayed on its small LCD screen and caught sight of the white limo he’d been waiting for as it turned the corner.

Time to get the ball rolling.

“I’ll call you back.” He clicked off and nodded to Gordy behind the wheel, a man he trusted but would take care of afterward nevertheless. Gordy had a number of useful attributes, but the ability to rise above his circumstances wasn’t one of them. No matter how big a share of the money he would get, sooner or later he would find his way back to the booze and the drugs and the old friends he could get them from.

And then Gordy would talk.

That worried him, how the number of people involved was snowballing out of control. Why was Ramon in Miami, for example? To supervise him? The thought that he wouldn’t be trusted filled him with rage. Not that he trusted any of the men on either crew, the one he’d brought to Miami or the one he’d put together to stay in Ladera to wait for Sonya there, under Pedro Carrera’s direction. Pedro was going to be pissed after he figured out he’d been screwed over, stuck with a high-profile kidnap victim on his hands.

Jose shrugged off the thought. Carrera could be as pissed as he wanted to be as long as the man didn’t find him. And, with as much money as he was going to make on this deal, disappearing without a trace shouldn’t be too hard.

He glanced at the two men in the back of the limo with him. They were there for muscle—a kidnapping in broad daylight in the middle of Miami took more than one pair of hands. He wasn’t about to show himself. He was going to play this smart, planned and coordinated. This was his chance to break out, to leave small-time and give himself a promotion.

Once they had Sonya, these two would smuggle her out of the country, to Pedro in Ladera. Jose and the rest of the team would stay behind to tie up loose ends. He would pick up the ransom money and ditch the master plan at that point, start following his own path. He wasn’t going back to Ladera. Ever. He was going in the opposite direction. And when he got there, he’d buy himself the life he deserved.

“Get ready,” he said to the men as Sonya Botero’s sleek new limo pulled up to the curb.

Johnson, her driver, got out and opened the door for her. The rich bitch who’d exited the bridal salon a few minutes ago stopped to watch. What was she doing? Hoping to spot a celebrity?

Well, hell, he didn’t have time to worry about her.

“Watch for the security cameras. You know where they are,” he said.

Gordy pulled the car up behind Botero’s; his other two men jumped from the car and dashed for Sonya as planned.

What the hell was her driver doing? Why was he putting up a fight?

Okay, not much of a fight, just enough to make it look good. Stupid bastard still thought he’d do his part and get out with his pay. He’d be taken care of before the day was out.

Then Sonya was in the car, on the seat opposite from him, and the doors slammed shut.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you doing this to me?” She started on a tone of outrage but finished the last sentence on a sob, her eyes wide with panic. “Please—” She yanked her head around as a needle sank into her arm—along with a drug, courtesy of Dr. Ramon, the man proving useful for something after all. She tried to jerk away but was held firmly until she gave up struggling.

Gordy put the car in Reverse.

Botero’s driver was still on the ground, playing his role to the hilt.

Jose Fuentes considered him for a second. Might as well take care of him now. No sense letting the police have a go at him. “Run the bastard over.”

Gordy complied, but Johnson rolled out of the way.

The man who’d been there with his ritzy bimbo since before Sonya’s arrival was rushing toward them, looking hell-bent on playing saviour.

What the hell did he think he had to do with any of this? Had a hero complex, did he? Anybody that stupid didn’t deserve to live. “Get the bastard.”

Gordy turned the steering wheel and aimed toward the man, but he dove aside. Had pretty good reflexes, that one. The woman, standing a few yards behind him, wasn’t as nimble. She took the full brunt of the hit, bouncing off the hood with a satisfying thud.

One less witness. Jose clicked his tongue with satisfaction that was short-lived.

People were running from up the street and Weddings Your Way. He didn’t like the look of one in particular, a tall Hispanic guy who was pulling a small handgun as he ran. Probably their in-house security. Seemed like nobody could mind their own damned business.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Gordy aimed the limo into the city, toward the dark garage that was ready with another car to make the switch. Like clockwork, that’s how it would all go. The initial idea might not have been his, but by God he’d done the on-site planning. Their success would be due to him and no one else.

Gordy flew through the red light at the intersection, dodging cars like a pro, proving he was the right man for the job. A minute later they were lost in traffic, just a few blocks from being safe.

Jose Fuentes picked up the phone, ready to report now. Had to keep everyone happy and make sure nobody suspected a thing until after he’d gone his own way.

He bit back a smile as he dialed. The first part of his mission had been accomplished. He was eager to move on to the next phase.

Chapter One

A few weeks later

She shouldn’t have agreed to the mission.

Isabelle Rush hung on to the rock ledge with the tip of her fingers, dangling over a 300-foot drop to the rocks below. A tangy scent from some small fern she’d inadvertently crushed in the last handhold tickled her nose. Would she fall if she sneezed?

She was secured with knots and ropes she didn’t understand and didn’t trust, petrified of slipping. The current of air that moved above the tree line seemed to pick up speed, the odd gusts pushing against her.

Please, don’t let there be a serious wind.

“A few more yards and we can stop to rest,” Rafe said from somewhere above her, barely breathing heavily.

She, on the other hand, was gasping for oxygen in the thin, high-altitude air, sweat running down her back from exertion.

She should have stayed in Miami.

He was the absolute worst man for her to be teamed up with. Of course she couldn’t refuse, not when a client’s life hung in the balance.

But, at the very least, when Rafe had said “shortcut” she should have run screaming into the night—in the opposite direction. What was it with men and their shortcuts? Like chasing murderous, kidnapping drug lords wasn’t enough excitement? They had to add getting lost in the Andes Mountains to the mix?

“This will save us a full extra day,” he said as he tightened the rope.

She hoped he was right and that her instincts, which screamed lost and on the brink of disaster, were sounding a false alarm. Speed was their only hope for finding Sonya Botero alive.

Isabelle clenched her muscles, having a foothold for one boot only and too much of a gap between the next indentation to push or pull herself up. She was five foot four. She could not stretch over the same distance as Rafe could.

Night was closing in on them—not dark yet, but the shadows were becoming long, which made judging distances harder. She had to do something before visibility became worse and her limbs grew even more exhausted. One… Two… She heaved her body upward, looking at the chunk of rock she was aiming for, shutting out the drop below. She grabbed on, and in that moment of truth that decided whether she would hold her grip or fall, a strong hand clamped around her wrist and held her steady.

“Easy now,” Rafe said. “Almost there.”

She allowed him to pull her up, only grunting in response although she had plenty to say. She was saving her breath for the climb. Rafe, having been born in Ladera, seemed used to the mountains that made up most of the country.

He helped her up to a ledge that was about six feet by four feet, small patches of moss growing in the scant dirt the winds had blown up there. The rock wall continued above it for another hundred feet at least, just as sheer as the section they’d already conquered.

“Nice climb.” A sense of relief was evident in his smile, the fact that he was immensely enjoying himself visible in his eyes—the color of cocoa powder the instant it melts into chocolate. “Piece of cake, didn’t I tell you?” His voice was rich with the flavor of South America, spiced with the slightest accent.

“Mmm.” She gulped the thin air. When he’d pulled her up she’d landed on her knees. She sat back onto her heels now and shrugged off her backpack, blew on her fingertips, which were raw and bruised from the sharp rocks they’d had to conquer.

“How is this better than taking a car up the road?” she asked, once she thought she could speak without gasping.

“Faster,” he said over his shoulder as he unhooked their ropes systematically. “I’m glad we picked the Maxim ropes—excellent hand, 48-sheath yarn, good twist level.” He was gathering up everything in careful coils. “Fine abrasion resistance, too. See this? Not a worn spot.”

Was that supposed to make sense? “So how come you’ve never mentioned anything about this climbing hobby of yours?”

He shrugged and tucked the equipment against the inside edge of the shelter. “Never came up, I guess.”

She didn’t mean to voice the thought that popped into her head, but it came out just the same. “We’ve worked together for three years and I barely know anything about you.”

Part of that was his own need for privacy, she supposed, and part that she had, on purpose, kept out of his way, not liking the physical attraction that drew her to a colleague, an infamous playboy at that. A brief and steamy relationship that would no doubt end in pain and embarrassment was not among her carefully crafted life goals.

He was unrolling his sleeping bag, saying something about the time they would save by climbing.

“Faster is not always better,” she snapped. Not if one of them got injured or fell.

“No, not in everything.”

When he looked at her like that, his full attention like a cocoon around her, his brown eyes fixed on her face, it made her want to squirm like some schoolgirl. She gathered her self-control and kept her poise as he went on.

“The road is probably watched. It’s not a bad climb, honestly. Just seems like it because it’s your first. We have good equipment. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Last I checked, we were here as teammates,” she said, testy that he made it sound as if he was babysitting her.

“Of course. And I hope you are not going to let anything happen to me.” His sensuous lips stretched into a smile, his even white teeth a contrast to his olive-colored skin. “Compadres. Buddies.”

That’ll happen. Partners, yes. Buddies, highly unlikely. She wasn’t optimistic enough to shoot for friendship. She wasn’t sure she could handle it, didn’t want to spend that much time with him outside the job. The forced proximity of the mission was plenty enough to drive her crazy.

None of that was his fault, though, to be fair. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m just tired. It’s been a nerve-racking day.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked as he came closer.

She pulled her hands to her lap, but he caught the gesture and reached for them, took one in each of his and flipped them palm up.

His face turned grim as he swore softly under his breath in Spanish. He let her left hand go and reached for his backpack to extract a small tube of ointment from one of the side packets. “Why didn’t you say something? We could have taken more breaks.”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t consider dangling on a rope over the abyss a break. I’d just as soon get the climb over with as fast as possible.” She took a breath then held it as he squeezed some of the clear gel onto his fingertip and rubbed it gently over the pad of her thumb.

“Okay?” He glanced up, into her eyes, with concern.

She cleared her throat. “Good. Feels cool.”

“You should be fine by morning.” He moved on to the next finger, then the next.

When he was done, he took her hands one more time and pressed a warm kiss into each palm, sending some heat into her face that she hoped he couldn’t see in the twilight.

“How are your arms and legs?” He put away the gel. “A good muscle rub and everything could be as good as new by the time we get going again.”

“No. Thanks,” she said and fished out a jar of face cream from the bottom of her pack, something one of her friends was developing in a quest to build a successful cosmetics business.

Isabelle got free samples of everything, partially due to their friendship and partially, she suspected, because Sylvia was hoping to feature her products, for future brides, at Weddings Your Way. She dabbed the smooth, rich cream onto her wind-dried face with a knuckle and spread it around with the back of her hand, not wanting to mess up whatever potion Rafe had rubbed over her fingertips.

The scent of oranges soothed her. Sylvia used various essential oils in most everything she made.

Rafe sniffed the air appreciatively. “So we snuggle up for the night?” He flashed a sly grin and made himself comfortable.

“No. Again. But nice try,” she said while thinking a snuggle wouldn’t be that bad, for body heat if nothing else. August was a winter month in Ladera, a country in the Southern hemisphere. The weather wasn’t bad during the day but dipped into the forties at night. At least Laderan winters were generally dry, so they didn’t have to worry about being cold and wet.

The breeze ruffled his dark hair, putting the slight curls into disarray. “Men have fragile egos, you know,” he said, and his expression turned serious. “Too much rejection can be psychologically damaging. Emotional trauma and that kind of stuff.”

She drew up an eyebrow. “I don’t think you see enough rejection for that.”

He was unfairly good looking, something like she pictured Antonio Banderas would look like if he joined a gym today and kept going religiously. He had an easy smile, sexy, that matched his laid-back manner, and intense eyes that were sharp with intelligence. He was infinitely charming and, at the same time, commanded respect with ease.

And she was a fool for getting a secret thrill out of bantering with him like this, although she was smart enough never to take his advances seriously—nor did she think he expected her to. The man had an active social life. She always figured he flirted with her at the office out of boredom in between assignments.

“Someday…” he said, mischief glinting in his eyes, obviously not ready to give up yet “…all that pent-up desire will erupt. You will realize what you’ve been missing. The dam will break and—”

“Is this little fantasy going anywhere?” she asked in a voice as dry as she could manage it.

“I’m just saying. When the time comes… Be gentle with me.”

She smiled into the semidarkness despite herself. “I’m not someone you need to worry about.”

“It’s always the quiet ones who worry me the most.”

His voice vibrated through her the way bass chords did if you sat too close to the speakers.

Don’t think about it.

She half turned and dug through her backpack for food and water. Next time she agreed to go on a mission with anyone, she was going to insist on hotel rooms—separate ones. She glanced around their cramped shelter and considered it fully for the first time. Pitiful.

“Should have stayed a criminologist at the Drug Enforcement Agency,” she muttered.

“But isn’t this more fun?” A smile hovered above his lips.

“I liked symposiums and consultations with local police. Court appearances to give expert testimony definitely beat wondering if any poisonous bugs will crawl into my sleeping bag.” Or snakes. She swallowed.

She should have thought of that before she’d signed up to be an undercover agent at Miami Confidential. But she’d given up her comfortable job of profiling and in-house suspect interviews, partially because the offer from Miami Confidential had been hard to turn down and because she’d seen it as another new challenge to prove that she could stand her ground anywhere, do anything a man could. It was something her father had taught her at an early age, at times when having four brothers had overwhelmed her.

She thought of her work at the DEA then glanced around at the narrow ledge that was to be their resting place for the night. Now that she was with Miami Confidential, she had a feeling she could kiss assignments that came with room service goodbye.

“Snakes can’t climb this high, can they?” she asked, to be sure.

He was playing with the phone, trying to make a connection. “What would be the point? Nothing’s up here. They stay where their prey is.”

Damn smart of them.

“Okay. Good.” She nodded. “Anything?” she asked after a while.

He shook his head. “Even satellite phones don’t work everywhere.”

“We’ll report back once we reach the top.” She hoped and prayed they would make it that far.

“Not much left for tomorrow—an hour’s worth of climbing at best. But it’s tricky.”

Tricky? What the hell was the wall-of-death they’d just conquered? “Worse than up to here?”

“We’ll be getting to the part where the rock is covered with soil.”

And soil crumbled, slipped. “Great.”

“Plus we’ll be above the tree line,” he added. “We could be spotted.”

“All this good news is overwhelming.”

“We can handle it.”

Damn right they would. Failure was not an option. She wasn’t going to let Sonya die.

“She was still alive four days ago.” She kept telling herself that throughout the day, hanging on to the thought for hope.

The last time Carlos Botero had been contacted he had demanded to hear Sonya’s voice. The contact the kidnappers allowed had been brief but sufficient to reassure the father. “We have no reason to think anything has changed since then. Rachel will call us as soon as anything new comes in.”

The whole case was full of oddities, starting with the ransom note. It had been delivered to Sonya’s father instead of her fiancé, Juan DeLeon, a powerful politician. Why? Did that have significance or was it random choice? Both men were wealthy and powerful.

“I keep thinking there’s more at stake here than money. The kidnappers have to be from Ladera. Otherwise, why bring Sonya here? It only makes sense if they know the country like the back of their hands, if they’re sure they can hide out more effectively here.” She paused. “But if they’re Laderan, they have to be more familiar with Juan than with Botero. Why not send the note to him? Or why not kidnap Sonya in Ladera in the first place? Law enforcement is a lot more lax here. She’s been spending as much time here lately as she does at home.” They’d been over the same questions before. But maybe if they kept asking them, eventually one of them would come up with the correct answer.

“They want to keep the focus away from the country.”

She nodded, still agreeing with the conclusion they kept coming up with every time they talked about the clues. At least, as far as they knew, the kidnapers were not aware that Miami Confidential now had Sonya’s true location.

“I—” She fell silent then went ahead and, for the first time, voiced the thought she knew had been creeping around in both their heads. “I don’t think they’re bringing her back.”

His face darkened. “No. Transporting her across borders was way too much risk the first time around. They’d have to be stupid to try that again.”

“They never meant to return her.” Her words hung with a heavy finality in the air between them.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’ll keep her alive as long as they need her in case Botero asks to hear her voice. As soon as they have the money…”

He didn’t have to finish.

“It’s about politics,” he said with conviction. “Juan has a number of bills on the table, bills that would cut in to the drug trade, bills that would alter some political processes. The House is in session. His bills are coming up for a vote soon. Someone wants him distracted and far from Ladera. They know he’s not coming back from the U.S. as long as he thinks Sonya is still there. The longer he is away from home, the more time his enemies have to conspire against him and make sure his bills fail.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“But?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t feel right to me.”

“You don’t think Juan is the real target? Someone tried to shoot him a few weeks before the kidnapping. Hell of a coincidence.”

“Of course Juan is the target,” she said, agreeing with him up to that point. “I just don’t think the kidnapping is politically motivated.”

“Right. Because it doesn’t feel right.”

“I just think that the fact that whoever is trying to get to Juan DeLeon is doing it through his fiancée has some significance.”

“His ex-wife, Maggie, is locked up in an insane asylum,” he said, repeating an earlier argument. “Sean checked her out.”

Of course, he was absolutely right, frustrating as it was. And yet, her instincts were definitely pulling her in Maggie’s, the ex-wife’s, direction. “The only people caught so far that we know for sure were involved with the kidnapping were Maggie’s doctor, Dr. Ramon and her cousin, Jose Fuentes. The only reason we even know that Sonya is at the army base is because Fuentes confessed it before he bled out.”

“He never confessed a connection to Maggie.”

“He couldn’t very well tell his life story, could he? He didn’t live long enough, for heaven’s sake.”

“And if he worked for someone else?”

She considered that, determined to keep an open mind. Most of Maggie’s family were well-to-do, a few of them in politics, but there were a couple of black sheep, some with ties to the drug trade. Rafe had a valid point there.

Fuentes could have worked for one of Juan’s political opponents or one of his enemies in the drug trade. There were too many possibilities. His bills were making him unpopular with a lot of people.

“Anyway, the most important thing is we know where Sonya is right now,” he said. “First we get her to safety, then we can figure out who was behind it all.”

She nodded. If all went well, at one point tomorrow Rafe and she would see to it that Sonya Botero was freed from her captors, whomever they might work for. She hoped and prayed the woman was still alive when they got there.

“They’ll keep her around for a while yet,” he said, his thoughts apparently running along the same line. “For the money and because of Juan. She’s just a tool to hurt him, to distract him from his political agenda. If his young, beautiful fiancée died now, think of the headlines. Think of the outpouring of sympathy he’d get, the votes. No.”

She nodded. It made sense that whoever Juan’s enemies were, they would go for total destruction—messing up both his career and personal life. Distract him with the kidnapping to make sure his bills fail, then finish him off by murdering the woman he loves. The plan seemed diabolically thorough. She could definitely see Maggie, year after year in the insane asylum, plotting her revenge. “The fury of a woman scorned.”

“Somebody wants to go, you’ve got to let them. If that’s how they feel, no sense in them staying, is there?” he asked. “I never understood jealousy.”

“You might have to be in an actual relationship, you know, with feelings, to experience it.”

“Ouch,” he said, but grinned.

“Sorry.” She took a deep breath. What on earth was wrong with her? When had she sunk to petty needling? Rafe Montoya’s private life was none of her business. And it was certainly not her place to judge. She was an intelligent woman, she ought to be able to find a better way of dealing with her unwanted attraction toward him.

She refocused on the task at hand. “I’m concerned about how they are treating her.” If they planned to kill her all along, they wouldn’t worry about minor damage along the way, would they?

He nodded, sober now. He knew the criminal mind as well as she did, maybe better—from both sides of the law.

From what she’d heard when they’d worked for the DEA, he had left a rather dark past behind him when he’d moved to Miami from Ladera, although she didn’t know the details. They hadn’t known each other back then, worked different territories, but Rafe’s busts were legendary. Then they both left the agency, he a year sooner than she had, and by chance both ended up recruited by Miami Confidential, an undercover division of the Department of Public Safety.

“How long before the vote on Juan’s bills?” he asked.

“Seven days, I think.” A comfortable margin. They would have Sonya out of the country long before then and safely back in Miami.

“Do you think the kidnappers will try for the money again?”

She thought for a moment. “Fuentes had shown up for it twice.” And was fatally wounded by Rafe during the second handover attempt. “I’m not sure if the real mastermind who’s behind all this cares that much about the money, though. If it’s Juan he or she wants, then the fact that the kidnapping took place in the U.S. and that there was a ransom note to Botero—it might be all just to throw the police off the scent.”

“There might not be any of the kidnappers left in Miami, except for the ones who are in custody.” Two men who’d been with Fuentes had been apprehended the day he was shot. They hadn’t turned out to be all that useful. Isabelle had questioned them and was fairly convinced they weren’t lying when they’d claimed that they knew little of Fuentes’s plan other than day-to-day instructions and had no idea whether there was a boss above Fuentes or who had Sonya in Ladera and how big the home team was here.

Her gaze strayed to the half-eaten power bar in her hand that she’d forgotten as they talked. She had packed dozens of them in preparation for the trip. She finished this one now and washed it down with a few gulps of bottled water, then lay on her back and looked up. The stars were coming out. “We better get some rest.”

Rafe’s backpack rustled. He was probably going for his own supper.

She stared at the night sky but could not make the feeling of endlessness and peace settle into her tense body. Was Sonya looking up at the same stars? Probably not. She’d be hidden out of sight. But her kidnappers… How many were they? She figured on a handful of men. More than that would draw attention. There might even be just one at a time. They could be guarding her in shifts.

Would they hurt her?

Her jaw tightened at the question that kept her up at night. Because she knew they might. There were a lot of things they could do to her while still keeping her in a condition good enough that, when her father demanded to hear her voice, she could say a few words over the phone.

The strong smell of spices made her glance over at Rafe. He was chewing on some smoked meat he had bought at a local market before they’d begun their hike two days ago.

“God, I missed this.” He just about moaned with pleasure.

His joy seemed so complete, she couldn’t help but smile. “How long has it been since you visited?”

“Too long and not long enough.” He gave her a rueful grin.

“Is there— Would you be in trouble if we ran into…” She half voiced the question that had popped into her mind from time to time since they’d landed, then stopped. She didn’t want to offend him.

“Is there a warrant out for my arrest?” He drew up a black eyebrow, humor playing at the corner of his mouth. “No. Even in my most stupid younger years, I was always smart enough not to get caught.” He took another bite, chewed and swallowed.

“And your old…um…associates?”

His face turned serious. “We are nowhere near them.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then shook off whatever memories her questions had brought forth. “I’m not saying I won’t be happy to be back in Miami, though.”

Back to the parties, back to his women, no doubt. Oh, what did she care? “What do you tell your girlfriends when you have to leave at a moment’s notice like this?” She put forward another question she’d been successfully swallowing until now.

“Family emergency,” he said. “No girlfriend at the moment, if that’s what you’re getting at. I am conveniently available.”

Her polite upbringing didn’t allow her to snort or produce any other rude sound, despite the four brothers she’d grown up with—her grandmother had been a Southern belle.

As far as she could tell, Rafe was always “conveniently available” even when he did have a girlfriend, although that was a strong term for one of his temporary liaisons. Girlfriend implied commitment and some kind of semipermanence.

“Gone through the whole city already? I suppose you’re going to have to move.” She meant to sound humorous and winced at how bitchy her words came out.

“Very funny.”

“Not really.” It was sad that despite the type of man he was, she was still more attracted to him than to anyone she’d ever dated. But if they got involved and then split up, working in the same office would be murder. So she wasn’t going to go there.

“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind about me,” he said after a while.

At thirty-four, she really was old enough to know better. “Hope is good,” she said sweetly. “It’s a positive emotion.”

RAFE PACKED AWAY his food and lay on his back.

He would have liked to think if he really went after her, he could get her. Women had always come easy, one of the few areas of his life he never had to worry about. Isabelle, though… She was different. She was too smart by half, one of the things that attracted him to her. Probably too smart to get involved with the likes of him.

He enjoyed flirting with her at the office—gave him something to look forward to in the mornings. But he never hit on her seriously, despite that she was one of the most gorgeous women he had had the extreme good luck to meet. For one, she was a coworker. Two, he figured she deserved someone better.

In a different world, if he were a different man… No sense in going there, no matter how many times she’d got him hot under the collar.

“We’ll resume climbing at first light,” he said.

“I’ll be ready.” She pulled a straight face, pretending hard that she wasn’t petrified.

He found it fascinating to watch how she went ahead in the face of any fearsome task brought on by their mission so far. First there would be uncertainty and doubt in her eyes, then she would set those sexy lips into a firm line and seem to draw from somewhere deep within the courage necessary, pulling herself straight and unfailingly rising to the occasion.

Her sheer determination was a like a force field around her. With her normally soft, fawn-colored eyes turned hard as they were now, if she stood at the rim of their ledge, spread her arms and said that by God she was flying to the top, he would believe her.

She would conquer the rest of the cliff in the morning, he would bet his new boat on it. When the time came to climb, she would call forth the necessary strength. But for now, with a long uncomfortable night ahead of them, she looked like she could use some encouragement, a reminder of how close they were to their goal.

“If all goes well we should be at the army base by noon. We’ll do some recon, pinpoint Sonya’s exact location and move in as soon as it’s dark again,” he said, and gained heart from the thought as well.

In twenty-four hours, Sonya Botero would be safe.

She’d been nice the few times they’d met socially, long before she’d become a client at Weddings Your Way. They’d flirted once, briefly, at a party, brought together by their common Laderan heritage. Then she’d fallen for Juan DeLeon, one of Ladera’s more prominent politicians. The Laderan community in Miami was all abuzz with the news.

He felt responsible for her. Not only because he’d known her before, but because, as head of security for Weddings Your Way, securing her wedding would have been his responsibility. She was kidnapped right in front of his building, under his nose. It galled him.

He hated any man who would harm a defenseless woman, use her as a pawn. He made it his personal mission to bring Sonya back and keep his partner safe in the process. Not to mention keep his hands off Isabelle. Close proximity and overpowering temptation notwithstanding.

SONYA BOTERO SHIFTED as much as her ropes let her, allowing circulation to return to her left leg, which felt as if a thousand ants were crawling all over it. She held her gaze on the leg to keep herself assured the real army of ants, the ones that had marched right through her prison hut a few days ago, had gone. She saw them now only in her repeating nightmares and would continue to see them there for a long time to come. If she lived.

Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up.

At least her feet had healed. She clamped on to the one positive thing she could think of. The jute sandals she’d been given at the beginning had rubbed her skin raw, and she’d been worried about developing some infection. But now that she hadn’t been allowed outside for days, her wounds had had a chance to scab over and start to mend.

She thought of Juan and focused on that. Juan would come for her, Juan and her father—both men formidable in their own right.

Just a little longer. Almost over.

Trouble was, she’d been telling herself the same thing for about five weeks now, believing it a little less each day.

She couldn’t give up. If she lost faith…

But faith was hard to keep when she was hurt and hungry, when her life was threatened daily. At the beginning she’d got regular meals and trips to a nearby waterfall in the evenings to clean up. Although at the time she’d thought of her captivity as unbearable, now she wished for those times back. She hadn’t eaten in two days, hadn’t bathed in four.

Were they growing bored with their task of guarding her? Or had something gone wrong with Miami? She’d overheard enough to know that she was being held for ransom. Where was it?

It’d be here. Soon. Juan and her father would see to it. She had to keep believing that.

Both men had lost so much already: her father losing her twin sister to leukemia at the age of six, Juan losing his unborn son to drugs and his ex-wife to insanity. She hated the thought that now they had to worry about her.

From where she was, she could see the small fire and the men who gathered around it, drinking, one of them shoving a needle into his arm deep in the shadows. She still thought of escape now and then but no longer had the strength to attempt it.

The money is coming.

The money is coming.

The money is coming.

She repeated that over and over in her head. She knew better than to even whisper when she wasn’t asked.

Chapter Two

Rafe rubbed his elbow, sore from wielding the machete all morning. “You’re too close,” he said, then paused. Had to be the first time he’d ever said that to a beautiful woman. Man, times were changing.

Isabelle dropped back.

Better. They had to keep a healthy distance between them so that if they were discovered they wouldn’t both be taken out by the same spray of bullets. Drug routes crisscrossed the mountains; marijuana plantations were fairly common; poppy fields bloomed in out-of-the-way clearings. And with those came the men who guarded them, the drug lords’ private armies.

Laderan army base notwithstanding, the locals knew who owned these parts and respected the real power, the men on whom their lives depended.

“What’s that noise?”

Rafe stopped to listen. “Trucks. We must be getting close to the main road.”

Most roads in the area were little more than footpaths that connected the mountain villages. The only paved highway for hundreds of miles led to the army base that guarded the north corner of the country. They’d been hearing planes overhead more frequently for the past few hours but couldn’t see any from the thick canopy above.

He moved forward, toward the sound of the trucks, his feet sinking with every step into the layers of leaf mold underfoot. Walking on a solid surface would have been nice, but even when they found the road they would have to keep in the cover of the trees. At least he’d be able to stop navigating by his GPS unit and simply go by sight at that point.

The sound of motors faded, but he kept going forward. In another five minutes, he could see more light filter through the trees ahead. “There.”

He signaled to Isabelle to keep down as they crept to the edge of the woods. Damn. He scanned the other side of the road, nothing but stumps and low brush for as far as he could see.

“Not good,” he said when she came up next to him. “Loggers.”

“Do we have to cross?”

“We don’t have to, but I wouldn’t have minded having options. I don’t like it. If they’re logging this far up the mountain now…”

“They might have cleared woods closer to the base, too,” she finished the sentence for him.

“Right. I’d prefer not having to come out into the open.” He glanced at her. She looked okay although she’d been more quiet than usual that morning—probably the side effect of the high elevation. The thin air was bothering him, too, and he’d grown up with it. “Want to stop and rest for a while?”

“Not yet. I can walk a little longer.” She gave him a small smile. “I hate to stop knowing Sonya is out there, suffering who knows what.” She was backing away already, a few yards into the woods where they could walk without having to worry about being seen from the road.

“If anything happens to us, Sonya is not going to be saved at all. It’s okay to take a break,” he reminded her. They had precious little time left, not enough for Rachel Brennan, head of Miami Confidential, or anyone else to come up with a backup plan. They had to succeed and for that they had to stay in good shape and not let themselves get too run-down.

She drew in a good lungful of air and straightened her back, visibly gathering strength. “We’ll be fine.” Her fawn-colored eyes glinted with determination.

“Okay,” he said, just as eager to get going. “We’ll eat as we go.”

He moved forward, watchful and alert to any dangers ahead. They’d been lucky so far with the wildlife, but surprises abounded in the jungle. Speaking of which, the forest seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden.

He stopped again.

“What’s going on?” she asked from behind him.

“Listen.” He strained his ears. Was a group of smugglers moving through the woods nearby? Maybe a predator?

He pulled his gun, Isabelle following his example.

And then he felt it, a small trembling that could easily have come from a caravan of military vehicles passing on the road, except for the lack of motor noise.

“Watch out for falling trees!” he shouted as the ground shook harder now.

She was looking at him wide-eyed, her knees bent as she tried to balance. Insects rained from the trees and she shrieked. He was over there in two leaps, covering her with his body as she crouched down.

“It’s okay. Hang on. Just an earthquake.” He had to continue shouting now to be heard over the groaning trees, large branches splitting and smashing to the ground around them.

Then it all stopped just as fast as it had begun.

“Just an earthquake?” she asked weakly, once the ground stopped moving.

“Happens all the time.” He straightened and did his best to clean the bugs off her while she still crouched there with her shoulders hunched, apparently trying to prevent anything from crawling under her collar.

“Define all the time,” she said as she stood, then shivered with revulsion as she took in the ground and all the creepy crawly natives that were busy burrowing under fallen leaves or taking flight.

“A couple of hundred quakes a year. Some are so small you don’t even feel them, some pretty big.”

“And you haven’t told me about this, because?”

“I forgot about them.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that weird?” There had been two big ones during his childhood. Hard to believe they’d skipped his mind. He’d been living in Miami a long time. “It’s been a while.”

And he’d had too many other things on his mind to remember everything he should have. He was worried about Sonya, the wildlife in the jungle, Isabelle’s distracting presence and the fact that fifteen years ago, before he had left for the U.S., he had been a misguided young man, very much part of the local drug trafficking scene. If he weren’t careful, he could easily run into one of several people who’d just as soon separate him from his skin than see him in it.

“We go this way.” He picked up his machete and struck the bundle of vines blocking their way. “Keep behind me. Once we reach the base, we have to get a detailed picture of the place, find out where Sonya is, make a plan.”

He got down to business, separating a knot of woody vines that blocked their way.

“The woods keep getting denser,” she remarked as she followed him.

“The farther north we go, the closer we are to the equator. More vines, more bugs. A few hundred miles ahead these woods turn into a rain forest.”

“The more you have to cut, the more noticeable our trail is,” she said between bites, eating another one of her protein bars for lunch.

“I’m banking on the villagers and the smugglers sticking to their own well-worn trails. That’s why we are staying off them.”

They walked on for a minute or two before she spoke again. “All right. Your turn. I’ll take the machete while you eat.”

“That’s not necessary.” He turned around with a come on now smile that quickly wilted off his face at the look in her eyes.

“So your plan is to keep up the whole do this, don’t do that, stay ten steps behind while macho man makes sure everything is okay thing for the entire duration of this mission?” She cocked her head with a mild expression on her face.

Was she serious? “It’s— I’ve been to the jungle before and you haven’t.” Her words ticked him off. “Damn right I’m going to try to protect you.”

“Protect does not mean ‘boss around,’” she said sweetly, but her eyes weren’t smiling.

“You think we have enough time to hold a meeting over every little thing and discuss our differences until we come to a consensus?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean, exactly?”

“I meant what I said.” She marched up to him. “Give me the damn machete.”

She didn’t look like she was kidding—her feet set apart, her gaze locked on to his face. He hated to think what this was going to do to the tender skin of her palms, which had been already damaged by the ropes. But he handed over the slightly curved blade and took a quick step back as she lifted it in an arch and went at the vegetation.

The woman used the machete like she meant it.

Maybe she was right and she needed less protection than he’d thought. He gave her plenty of room before he followed, pulling some dried meat and a bottle of water from a pocket of his backpack. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food hit his stomach.

They were going slower than if he was in the lead but only marginally. And being second in line wasn’t a bad position after all. There were advantages—watching Isabelle twist and bend, her hair swaying around her shoulders as she went about her work with unabashed enthusiasm.

Normally, he would have regarded with caution anyone who wielded a knife that big. Oddly enough, he found the sight of her with that machete a serious turn-on. Not a surprise, come to think of it. He’d found most everything about Isabelle enticing from the moment they’d first met.

For the past few days, he had barely thought about the fact that right now he should be out on the water, testing his brand new boat, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze instead of being sweaty and tired to the bone, trekking through the jungle. Isabelle’s company more than made up for his lost vacation.

She kept up the backbreaking work for a solid hour before she slowed.

“Okay.” She wiped her forehead. “You can take over for a while. Then we’ll switch back.”

A fine sheen of sweat dampened the strawberry-blond locks at her forehead and neck, and she was breathing hard but had a look of utter satisfaction on her face that made her irresistibly beautiful.

“Have to say, I never pictured you doing this kind of stuff—considering those high heel, strappy sandals and flirty skirts and all that you wear at the office,” he teased.

“I don’t wear flirty skirts,” she snapped mildly, but her eyes were smiling.

“Mmm.”

“Anyway, I have four brothers. I had to grow up tough,” she said.

He had to admit he found this tougher, physical side of her that was coming out in the jungle just as enticing as the soft, more cerebral role she filled at the office.

He grinned as he took the machete from her and cracked his neck before settling into the task at hand. The rest had been nice. Now that he was head of security at Weddings Your Way, his job involved a lot of desk duty, and although he made sure he kept in shape clearing brush in the jungle was a lot more strenuous than anything the trainers could throw at him at the gym.

All the more impressive that she’d done it for as long as she had.

He put some muscle into it and made progress, speaking little for the next hour or so. Then he could set the machete aside as the vegetation grew sparser again.

The sound of airplanes as they took off and landed came from fairly close by, as did other sounds of civilization—motors, metal banging against metal somewhere in the distance.

“Watch every step,” he said. “I don’t think the army would have perimeter sensors this far out but no sense in taking a chance.”

She nodded, scanning the ground and trees around her.

They crept forward another few hundred feet before they reached the end of the woods and had to drop to their stomachs. Crawling silently, they soon reached a rocky ledge and were rewarded with an excellent overview of the small military base below.

“You think she’s in there?” she whispered next to him as they lay on the rock shoulder to shoulder. “Fuentes said at the military base.”

“I doubt she’s inside. Even if the kidnappers have connections at the base, the risk of discovery would be too great there. Can’t bribe everybody.” He scanned the open land and the surrounding woods. “I do think that she is someplace very close, though.”

Other than the military base there were dozens of huts, a small store and other public buildings for those who made a living by selling things to the base or by working there. He could smell the pig farm before he spotted it, sprawling to the edge of the forest on the other side of the base.

“Let’s circle around,” he said.

“It’ll go faster if we split up.”

“Okay,” he agreed with some reluctance. She’d proven over and over that she could handle herself. Besides, she wouldn’t be part of Miami Confidential if she couldn’t. “If you find anything call me on the two-way.”

THAT WAS IT? He wasn’t going to tell her they should stick together so he could protect her? Isabelle stared at him for a long moment, swallowing the list of objections she’d already prepared.

“All right. Good luck.” She moved back toward the woods where she could circle the base without being spotted.

“Be careful,” he said, and took off in the opposite direction.

She walked a good three hundred yards before she broke cover and crawled to the edge of the woods again, taking a good view at the six-foot-high cement fence and the barbed wire on top, the evenly spaced guard towers that were manned. A row of shacks had been built just outside the wall, with small kitchen gardens between them. A woman came out of one and tossed a bowl of dirty water, yelling something to the group of children who played nearby.

“Sí, Mama,” one of them responded.

The woman went back inside.

Isabelle counted the shacks, eleven in all. She waited and watched as more people came and went and identified the huts that nobody seemed to be using. Still, it was hard to say whether they were truly abandoned or the occupants were merely at work somewhere on the base.

A few hours remained until sunset. She couldn’t go any closer than this until then, so for the time being she moved on, hoping to survey her half of the circle and meet up with Rafe somewhere ahead with a few suggestions on what they should investigate further.

The next cluster of buildings ahead was the pig farm, another two hundred yards from the huts. She pulled back into the woods where she could walk instead of having to crawl on her stomach to avoid being detected. She kept track of the distance, moving toward the base again once she thought she’d gone far enough.

She crouched for a second to listen before she went out into the open, and the precaution paid off. Now that she wasn’t moving, she could clearly make out voices, coming from the woods somewhere behind her, nearing.

She had to hide. Now.

Dense bushes edged the woods to her left. She made a dash for them and pushed inside, flattened herself to the ground. In another few minutes she could see military boots, six pairs, as men marched by toward the base.

She waited several minutes after they passed before coming out of the bushes, then another five minutes or so before moving closer to the pig farm. She breathed shallowly, her stomach turning at the stench even though plenty of open space divided the pens from the woods. Too much, in fact, to get close enough, so she had to use her binoculars to make her careful observations.

Come on. Give me something. Anything. She inspected every square foot but could see nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that aroused her suspicion.

The next stretch ahead seemed empty save an entrance gate to the base. She pulled back to the woods, planning to avoid that part altogether, not wanting to run in to soldiers. Better not to come out into the open again until she was sure she was well past the gate.

She walked carefully, knowing the woods this close to the base would hardly be deserted. The army would be training here, men hunting, older children playing.

She was right on top of the derelict hut before she could see it, so overrun by vines it was, its weather-beaten wood blending in well with its surroundings. Isabelle stopped and crouched low to the ground, took in the remains of a fire and the empty bottles a few feet from her. Every instinct in her body screamed this was it.

She circled the clearing step by careful step, stopping every few yards to listen for any sound from inside the shack. First time around, she could detect no sign of life. The second time around, she ran into Rafe.

“Any movement?” He whispered the question, his clothes a lot dirtier than when he’d left her.

She probably looked just as bad. Crawling in the dirt on your stomach tended to do that.

“Haven’t seen a soul. They could be laying low,” she said.

“Come up with a plan yet?”

“We wait to see how many men are in there. One of us stays here, the other could keep checking the perimeter, make sure there’ll be no surprises from any side.”

“Want to go?” he asked.

Putting her foot down with the machete business had apparently achieved its goal. He was taking her more seriously. Good. She liked quick learners.

But should she go? She shook her head after a moment of thought. “You have more experience in the woods.”

“Okay.” He pointed to the left. “If you do go anywhere, don’t go near those. The thorns are full of poison.”

She checked out the bushes and registered with relief that they seemed different from the ones she had thrown herself into earlier. She was definitely staying put until he got back.

By the time she returned her attention to him, he had disappeared back into the jungle. He did that well. She stared after him, unable to spot where he was.

The wind was picking up, ruffling the trees above. She couldn’t detect any sound from the hut. No movement indicated the presence of men. Maybe they were sleeping. Could be they were keeping a low profile, going for the abandoned hideaway look. After the first hour went by, she began to think otherwise. The place seemed too quiet.

Was it the wrong place, after all? Was Sonya kept somewhere else?

Or had they gone off to a new hiding place? Where?

Then it occurred to her that Sonya could be in there alone, bound and gagged. Maybe they only checked on her from time to time. It would sure make the rescue easier. But even as hope fluttered through her, her instincts said it wasn’t so. If they’d left her in there alone, they hadn’t left her alive.

The urge to go and see for herself was overwhelming, but she stayed because it was the smart thing to do and acting stupidly now would risk not only her own life but Rafe’s and the success of their mission.

She kept low and mapped the clearing in her head, the distance from the woods to the door, from the small window to the game trail on the other side.

Forty minutes passed before Rafe returned, appearing out of nowhere.

“They might all be gone,” was the first thing he said, confirming her worst fears.

“Find anything?”

“Tracks. Two four-wheelers. They left sometime during the night.”

She nodded and moved forward, using the vegetation for cover. They had nothing else left to do but check out the hut itself and see if they could find any clues to where the kidnappers had gone. They approached carefully, despite expecting the place to be empty. She crept toward the shabby abode while Rafe covered her, then he stole forward foot by foot while she trained her gun on the single door.

When they were both there, he opened the door a crack. Nothing happened. She pushed the door open the rest of the way with the tip of her gun.

Discarded plastic bottles littered the dirt floor, in addition to a worn-out blanket, an old wooden plate and a couple of moldy crates. The hut was small enough to be appraised with one glance.

“I doubt they’re coming back.” Rafe kicked the crate over, sending bugs scampering in every direction.

A shiver ran down Isabelle’s back at the thought of Sonya being kept here, tied up, helpless.

“Do you think the kidnappers are taking her back to the U.S.?” Maybe they’d been wrong and Fuentes’s buddies did plan on returning her in exchange for the money.

Rafe looked at her then looked away. “Wish I could be that optimistic.”

He moved aside another crate, and she saw the half-dug hole at the edge of the wood plank wall—a hole that had been clearly dug from the inside by someone trying to get out, not by an animal from the outside trying to get in.

The gap was fairly large, but not large enough for a person. Sonya hadn’t succeeded.

Rafe bent over to inspect the bottom of the planks, some of them damaged. She bit her lip as she crouched next to him to see what he was looking at and spotted the dried blood. She could see in her mind Sonya trying to pull the boards loose until her fingertips bled. Isabelle’s throat tightened.

“We’ll find her.” Rafe’s voice sounded clipped as he straightened.

“Any idea where they’ve gone?” The sooner they started out, the better. No sense in wasting time here.

“Their tracks point south. We’ll follow them.” He was already heading for the door, which was stuck ajar, held in place by one of the crates he had moved there to let light in. He gave the crate a frustrated kick, sending it flying outside.

By pure chance she glanced up and saw something odd among the vines that grew on top of the hut and had sneaked inside, something that didn’t belong there—a blue plastic-coated wire. Her brain moved faster than her eye. By the time she spotted the shapeless lump of plastic explosives she knew the hut had been booby-trapped.

“Bomb!” she yelled as she lurched forward.

Incomprehension flashed over Rafe’s face even as he acted on reflex and grabbed for her, flung her from the hut in front of him, out toward safety. They didn’t quite reach it. The next second the building blew, the force of the explosion lifting them both from the ground and sending them flying through the air.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. She flailed her arms as if that could slow her. Then she was smacking into the ground, hard. She couldn’t breathe for a long moment. Everything hurt. Flaming boards rained from above. She covered her head, the most she could do. She didn’t have it in her to try to crawl away.

After a few moments, once things quieted down, she looked up and spotted Rafe in the clearing smoke.

He wasn’t moving.

“Rafe?” Odd, she could have sworn she spoke, but she could hear no sound coming out of her mouth. “Rafe?” she said louder, with the same result.

The explosion. Right. She was still deaf from it. She pulled herself up, did a routine check. What hurt? Everything. What broke? She tested her limbs. They all worked. Other than the scorch marks on her clothing and a few gaping tears here and there that revealed some serious abrasions, she seemed to be all right.

“Rafe?” She moved toward him, and over the ringing in her ears she could finally hear something, a siren going off in the distance.

The explosion had been loud enough to be heard at the base. The Laderan military was about to come to investigate.

She hobbled toward Rafe, bent when she got there. “Get up.” She grabbed his shoulder. “The soldiers are coming. We have to get out of here.”

They didn’t have time to deal with the army now. The questioning could last days. Two foreigners involved in a bombing incident next to a Laderan military base—they could be in jail for weeks before the U.S. consulate got them out. Sonya couldn’t wait that long.

“Come on,” she said, and felt panic rising from a deep, dark well inside when he didn’t get up. How badly was he hurt?

He was lying on his back, moaning, or at least she thought he was. His lips were moving, his dark eyes rolled back in his head.

“Can you move?”

He blinked, focused on her, said something, repeated.

Am I dead? She read the words from his lips.

If he was joking, all was not yet lost. “Stop looking for the easy way out.” She helped him sit, then slipped under his arm and pushed him up, carrying most of his weight.

When they were almost standing, he lurched forward, nearly sending both of them to the ground again. Maybe she couldn’t do it. The panic was grabbing hold. What was she thinking? They both belonged on a stretcher.

Move. She struggled with the first step but managed without falling over. Okay. One more. Then another, then another. She dragged him like that to the edge of the woods. They’d rest later. Right now they had to find someplace to hide.

“Go,” he said. “Leave me.”

Now that his words vibrated inches from her ear, she could finally hear them.

He was in bad shape. It scared her breathless, but she couldn’t show it. “Get moving, drama queen.” She nudged him forward.

She didn’t know what lay ahead, nor did she care, her only thought being to get as far away as possible from the army base and the soldiers who were coming after them.

“There.” Rafe was pointing to an open stretch of rocks to the left, the remnants of a landslide some time ago.

“No, not in the open.” She ignored him and pulled him forward.

“Tracks,” he said.

Where? She strained to see, then realized after a moment that he was talking about their tracks, the ones they were leaving behind. She glanced back. He was right; with both of them dragging their feet, they disturbed enough leaf mold that an idiot could follow them.

“Okay.” She moved on toward the stony ground that wouldn’t leave telltale signs of their passing.

They crossed that without trouble and made it into the woods again. Her legs wobbled. Rafe wasn’t a small man. She couldn’t support him like this for long.

He seemed to come to the same conclusion and pulled away from her. “Stop,” he said and sank to the ground. “We’ll rest a few minutes.” The side of his face was covered with soot and blood. “How are you feeling?”

Her hearing was returning slowly. So far, so good. “Fine. You took the worst of the blast.” At the last second he had positioned his body between hers and the hut. The thought brought an odd tightening sensation to her chest. She went down next to him and looked at a long cut on his neck that seemed the nastiest of his visible injuries. “Where else are you hurt? Is anything broken?”

“I don’t think so. Just banged up pretty good.” He drew a breath, let it out slowly. “I’m pretty sure this shoulder is dislocated.” He nodded to the right.

She unbuttoned his ripped shirt and pulled it aside, stared at the bone that was clearly out of place.

No.

He couldn’t be injured.

He was the only one between the two of them who knew what the hell they were doing out here. What did she know about the jungle? What did she know about Ladera? She needed him, needed his strength.

And he needed her.

“Okay. We’ll fix it.” She clenched her fists then unclenched them again, wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.

“Hold on to my hand,” he said, sounding infinitely calmer than she felt.

She took his hand, squeezed it and felt a rush of doubt. “Maybe we could find a village doctor. You said there are some scattered villages on the hillside.”

“Hold tight,” he said and threw his body back.

The bone returned to its place with a crunching sound, ligaments snapping into place. His face went a sick ashen color for a moment.

Her stomach rolled over. Her muscles went weak. She took a deep breath then another as blood returned to her head.

“Thanks,” he said, and tested the arm carefully before lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing it.

“Better?” She cleared her throat, ignoring the heat that skittered across her skin.

“Good as new.” He smiled and seemed to regain color.

The relief that washed over her was short-lived. The sound of motors filtered through the woods.

“Four-wheelers,” he said. “The soldiers use them to chase after drug traffickers. I bet the men who have Sonya got theirs from the base somehow.”

It made sense. The vehicles fitted the terrain.

“We have to go.” She stood and held out a hand to him.

“Thanks,” he said, but stood without assistance. “I’m not that bad now. Just got my bones rattled around.”

She glanced toward the base, the sound of motors growing louder. What now? The brief rest had helped, but still, neither of them were in the kind of shape it took to run. And even if they were, she doubted they could outrun the machines that were closing the distance behind them.

Chapter Three

His head was clearing finally, his body finding its way to working again. He still hurt all over, but at least he could walk on his own now, a step up from Isabelle having to help him.

Still, they were going too slow, and he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t him holding up the pace.

Rafe swallowed his frustration and pushed on.

They’d lucked out with the soldiers. The men had found the kidnappers’ tracks and rushed off to follow those while he and Isabelle hid not three hundred feet from the hut.

“Let’s stop to rest,” she said, looking back at him, her concern for him easy to read in her eyes.

“No.” He kept on going. “We’ll stop at nightfall.”

Darkness would be here soon enough, in an hour at the most.

They reached a small plateau covered by short trees and grasses. Above it on the other side where the land rose sharply, large trees reached for the sky, ninety or a hundred feet tall. The treetops were surrounded by mist, giving them an otherworldly appearance.

“How beautiful,” she said with wonder in her voice when they reached the trees that towered to impossible heights above.

She stopped and was looking up at the trees with her head tilted, the muted light turning her strawberry-blond hair the color of antique gold. She looked like a wood sprite.

“Almost makes you believe in magic, doesn’t it?” She looked at him and smiled that sweet, sexy smile of hers. “I swear I feel something. Like there’s more here than just the trees.”

He wouldn’t have thought she, a foreigner, would pick up on that, and so fast. “The local tribes think so.” He shrugged noncommittally and tried not to think of another time when he’d been alone in another cloud forest, doing something he shouldn’t have been and had felt the anger of the woods.

Today the trees seemed welcoming in their majesty, Isabelle looking as if she’d always been here, as if she belonged. He watched the smile that played on her full lips and wanted her, in that moment, with unreasonable fierceness, to belong to him.

He caught himself stepping closer to her. Stopped.

This was nothing but an aftereffect of their close call with death. Something like that could make a person want to reach out and grab life with both hands. “We should go.”

They crossed the woods, their trek feeling more like a dream than reality. He kept his GPS out and consulted it often now.

“Have you been here before?”

“Around,” he said. “Not at this spot. My family is in Cedra, south of here.”

“So what are we going to do now?” She voiced the question that had weighed heavily on his mind for the past couple of miles. “Should we see if we can pick up the kidnappers’ trail?”

“The army would have ruined any usable tracks by now, looking for us.” Their only lead had been obliterated.

“I’m not going back without Sonya.”

In that, they agreed. Neither was he.

“The only two people we know for sure were involved with the kidnapping, Dr. Ramon and Fuentes, are both connected to Maggie. We need to talk to her.”

“Ethan talked to her already. You saw the interview footage. She’s locked up in a mental institute. I have a hard time seeing her orchestrating a complicated international kidnapping.”

“But everything comes back to her.”

“Not Juan’s assassination attempt just a month ago. What if that and the kidnapping are connected?”

They kept coming back to the same argument over and over again. He kicked a fallen branch in frustration. There had to be something more, a clue they were missing.

Who had Sonya now?

“It comes down to your attitude about women, doesn’t it?” she observed.

“I don’t have an attitude about women. I like them.”

“Exactly. You want to seduce them or protect them or both.”

“What’s wrong with that?” When it came to women, Ladera had very traditional family values.

“You don’t want to persecute a woman. The thought of putting Maggie in jail makes you uncomfortable.”

He hadn’t really thought about it before, but she was right. The whole “pick on someone your own size” deal.

“This protection thing, it’s not gentlemanly, you know.”

“It isn’t?” He was confused.

“It’s an appendage of your chauvinistic predisposition.”

“I’m not a chauvinist.” He respected women, Isabelle being a prime example. She was as tough and as skilled as any man he’d ever known. He would have picked her to be on his team over anyone.

“So you want to protect women because they are the stronger sex?” She drew up an eyebrow.

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