CHAPTER SEVEN
AS HE SHOT PAST, Cody leaned back, swept a hand under Tia’s boat and grabbed the first thing he touched. He compensated with his hips as she bobbed up next to him, spitting and gasping, still holding the paddle. He had her by the shoulder. He jammed his paddle into his webbing and hauled her astride his bow.
“Hold on to me,” he yelled, retrieving the paddle. His nose was too low in the water. “Scoot up, quick!” Her hands flailed. She found the side of the cockpit and hoisted herself forward, jamming the crown of her head into his bare stomach, her face into his lap. Her ass stuck up over the lip of the cockpit. Her legs straddled the bow. Her paddle dug into his side. It was all he could do to hold the kayak straight, his arms and abs and quads sharing the strain, his hips and shoulders navigating them left and right as they flew around boulders, the bottom of the kayak scraping rock, her head bouncing in his lap.
After an age, a shoal island appeared midriver. They were far enough below the confluence that they could afford to stop and regroup. “Get ready to jump out,” he said. He paddled fast and beached the kayak front-on. She pretty much somersaulted over the bow and onto the stones, freeing him to leap out and pull the craft clear. Her kayak was coming up fast, bottom up, low in the water.
He dived, grabbed it and dragged it onto the island. He flopped onto his back, heart pounding out of his chest, headache crushing his skull. As the adrenaline passed, the cold closed in. He raised his head high enough to check their surroundings. Deep, swift channels on either side. Thick bush along the banks.
“Cody?” Tia’s voice creaked.
He crawled to her commando-style and slumped as she rolled onto her back.
“Not as stealthy as we’d planned,” he said.
“Or as elegant.”
A mental picture flashed up. Her denim-clad ass bucking in front of him, her face hammering his lap. Shame he didn’t get to appreciate that at the time.
“You’re grinning,” she said.
His chest convulsed into a laugh, which he covered with a cough as he flipped, resting his back on sun-warmed stones. She propped up on her elbows, dropping a wet-lashed gaze to his chest. Her eyes widened.
“Yeah, the little fuckers got me good.” Any second the itching would set in. Being numb had its advantages.
“The what?” she wheezed, her focus snapping back to his eyes.
“Those bugs you warned me about.”
Her gaze dropped again and narrowed. “Oh. Yeah.” She collapsed again. “Holy fuck, I’m cold.”
He forced himself up to sitting. Her jacket, jeans and sneakers were drenched. “We better get changed, fast.”
Something red was tied around her lower leg, dripping pink water onto the stones. He frowned, looking closer. “You’re bleeding. You hit rocks?”
“I hit dog.” Her voice vibrated. “Can’t feel my legs, so all good.”
“Must have been quite a hit. Damn, you’re shivering.”
“S-so are you. Your lips...blue...”
He crawled to the closest kayak—the yellow one—and pulled out the climbers’ dry bag. “I grabbed the stuff from the green kayak, too. There are thermals, a microfiber towel.” He dug through and found shorts, a pink thermal top and the towel and threw them to her.
Now for his clothing. You knew you were staring down trouble when getting dressed felt like an Everest expedition. He staggered to his feet, wove to his kayak like a drunk and keeled over, a meter short. He couldn’t feel his feet, let alone get them in the right places. He crawled the remaining distance, yanked out a dry bag and grabbed his own thermals and shorts. A T-shirt would do as a towel. He faced away from her—she’d be stripping down, too. Once dry and dressed, he found his neoprene socks and slipped them on. His defrosting feet throbbed like they were being stabbed. He threw himself into his spray jacket and zipped it to the collar. Better.
Hold up—there was no noise behind him. “Tia? You good?” No answer. “Tia?”
Nothing. He turned. She was sitting shivering like a wet Chihuahua, tugging at her jacket zipper. Still in jeans and sneakers. In another minute she’d be snap-frozen. He clambered to her and took the zipper. “I got it, Cowgirl.”
Her face was gray, her lips purple. She tried weakly to fight him. Under her legs, the pink water was turning red and thick. He yanked the zipper and shoved the jacket off her shoulders. Bare skin. Breasts. Nipples.
“Putain!” He stumbled backward, raising a palm to his eyes, and spun. “Fuck! I’m sorry, I didn’t...”
“’S okay,” she said. “Towel. Pass me...”
He patted the stones behind him and chucked it blindly in her direction.
“You were naked under that.”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice shuddering. “I didn’t start the day like this.”
“Oh fuck. Did he...?”
“No. My leg,” she said. “I used my T-shirt...”
“...as a bandage.” He slumped to his knees, still facing downriver. Of course.
“The look on your face was pretty funny.”
He choked out a laugh. “They did kinda...jump out at me.” Another thing to appreciate in hindsight.
She snorted and began giggling. Laughter exploded in his chest. He let it come, let it out until his abs ached.
“I don’t know why I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m freezing my...tits off.” She cackled. Shit, she was probably delirious. “It’s safe now, Cowboy. Nothing jumping out.”
She was squeezing her hair with the tiny towel. The pink top finished halfway down her forearms and several inches above her waist, stretched so thinly over her chest he didn’t need to rely on memory to picture what lay underneath. Not that he was looking, but man, it was hard not to.
“I think this top was intended for a normal woman.” She pulled her knees up, as if trying to hide those magnifique curves.
“No kidding,” he said, staring so intently at her face that his eyes stung. “I mean... I didn’t mean... It’s not that you’re not... It’s more that you’re...”
“Shut. Up.”
Man, he was head-to-toe idiot and she was head-to-toe goddess. And he should not be thinking about that stunning body. Still, she was warming him up right when he needed it. As much as he wanted to be a gentleman, nothing could wipe the sexy image burned on his brain.
“Let me find you a spray jacket,” he said, walking to the kayaks.
“Maybe the guy’s jacket, if there is one.”
“There is. I’ll get his shorts, too. Sorry, I just saw the pink and...”
“It really is time to shut up.”
Yep. He pulled out a fluoro lime jacket, strolled over and laid it across her shoulders.
“And don’t worry about offending me,” she said, pushing an arm into it. “I used to hate the way I look, but there are advantages to being man-sized. And hey, a guy who wants a petite princess to protect isn’t a guy I’m going to get along with.”
So what kind of guy did she want? And did that mean she was single? He cleared his throat. “What happened with the dog?”
She zipped the jacket, bent forward, wincing, and began untying her shoelaces. “Let me catch you up. It’s pretty crazy.”
By the time she reached the part where she limped to the kayaks, chased by the dog, Cody was a goner. The image of her swinging that bra... He knew some kickass women—most notably his legion buddies’ girlfriends, unfortunately for him—but Tia was...was...
“Cody?”
She’d stopped talking. Damn. Focus, Caporal. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
“Do you have a knife?” She smoothed long fingers down long thighs. “I might cut off my jeans at the knee and leave the bit around my calf—it’s probably holding the whole lot together. I don’t know which bits are me and which are denim.”
“Knife. Sure.” He wandered to his kayak and dug around. “Want me to check it out? I could clean and dress it, tape up the worst cuts.”
“It can wait. We should get some distance behind us before dark. He’ll be backtracking awhile, and bush-bashing, but—”
“You’re sure he’s on foot? No boat, no vehicle?”
“When he asked me for a ride, it was only him and the dogs. Even a trail bike wouldn’t get through this terrain. The river’s only navigable by kayak and you can’t kayak with three do—” She frowned suddenly. “I told you not to wait for me.”
“I told you I wasn’t leaving you.” He walked over and handed her his beast of a pocketknife. “I note you weren’t looking around for me when you pushed off in that kayak.”
“Because I was trusting you to look after yourself, like you should have been trusting me.” She grabbed a handful of denim and attacked it. “You should go on ahead. You’ll be faster without me. Get through the Auripo Falls tonight and you’ll be safely out of his scope. Below them the forest is so thick and steep it’ll take him an hour to cover two hundred meters.”
“Still not leaving you. Tu n’abandonnes jamais ni tes blessés.”
“Meaning?”
“You never abandon your wounded. The legionnaire code of honor.”
“I’m only marginally wounded, and I’m not yours.” She studied him like she was trying to work him out. “So, how did you end up swimming?” she said, returning to her leg. Sensibly concluding that arguing was futile? While she worked on the jeans, he ran through his version of events.
“I’m surprised the kayaks didn’t get shot when he was spraying the clearing,” she said after he’d finished.
“A couple did. Mine caught a ricochet, I guess. I duct-taped it. The one I left upriver was worse hit. Wouldn’t have lasted.”
She rocked up to a crouch, then stood cautiously and unzipped her fly. A good time to study his topo map. He retrieved it from his kayak and crunched across to the tail of the island. He’d scrawled notes on it from kayaking blogs and websites. The next few hours would be much the same as the chaos they’d emerged through—wide pools funneling into narrow canyons where the water dropped fast and quick, twisting and thrashing around car-sized boulders. He rubbed his belly. The nerves were flipping.
She swore quietly.
“What’s up?” He killed the urge to turn around.
“Nothing. Just...tight wet jeans aren’t the easiest thing to take off.”
Don’t give me that mental image. “Tell me if you need help.” He tried so hard not to sound sleazy that it came out stilted, like it was the last thing he wanted to do. Which was so far from the truth...
“I’m good.”
After a minute she gave the all-clear. She smoothed her hands down her fluoro yellow life jacket. “We’re glow-in-the-dark and he’s top-to-toe camo.”
Cody threw her a helmet. “We better go fast, then.”
Once they pushed off, his gut settled. With the reprieve from danger he could appreciate the scenery, like a fog had burned off to reveal a pristine day. As they descended—through canyons so steep his stomach dropped, through pools so clear it looked like their kayaks were hovering over the stony riverbed—the terrain changed from subalpine scrub to primeval rainforest, with ferns crowding the riverbanks and marching up hillsides, studded by tufty Seuss-like trees and giant cedars. He’d be only slightly surprised if a velociraptor popped up, squawking. Or an orc.
Yep, with the vivid color of the water it did feel like a movie set, some fantasy epic in a parallel universe. How could he feel so goddamn calm with a murderer hunting them and his commando team half a world away?
But he had Tia. And like she said, she was no princess. She didn’t talk much but she was easy company, and they settled into a partnership more through instinct than negotiation. At the rapids he’d check the lay of the obstacles, brief her and hope like hell to see her still with him when they got spat out. And every time, there she was, pulling alongside with a satisfied grin. They carried their kayaks over a few saddles and rocks to avoid treacherous stretches, though he shot longing glances at the surging white water. They powered through pools side by side, and at some point their sprints became an unspoken competition—one he didn’t always win easily. The only gloating from either was a sly smile. The only concession was a slight shake of the head. Her stroke was uneconomical, but she compensated with strength and athleticism and a determination written in her jaw.
After one sprint, she glided slightly ahead and he shamelessly drank in the view. The sunset glow warmed her long, strong arms, glossed up the black hair curling out under the helmet, and picked out the freckled contours of her face and the glint of her eyes. Guilt churned in his chest. This was supposed to be a memorial to his brother, not a dating show. He powered up and overtook her.
True to her word, they smelled the tahr before they saw them, like wet, rotting wool. The tatty creatures would freeze and stare, or clatter away. Ducks bobbed in quieter patches, other birds weaved and dived, and dragonflies hovered and shot just above the water.
Even so, the forest was eerily quiet. On operations in South America it felt like everything was taking a number to kill you—malaria, caimans, garimpeiro gangs. But what did he know? He’d grown up in San Antonio and spent most of his legion career shaking African dirt or Middle Eastern sand from his boots, or hunting terrorists in locked-down French suburbs.
After the tenth, twentieth—who knew?—rapid ejected them, he balanced his paddle across the cockpit and retrieved a granola bar. As he bit in, the boat lurched, jump-starting his heart. Shit, he was tipping. Caught on a snag. He grabbed the paddle. The granola bar skidded down the fiberglass and plopped into the water. He backpaddled hard, the hull scraping as the snag released him. A submerged branch. The kayak bumped into the water and he veered away.
“I didn’t see that.” His vision had adjusted so gradually he hadn’t noticed the river was in shadow. But yeah, his eyes were working hard. “We gotta get off the water. Where’s this waterfall?”
“Got your map handy?”
He eased up alongside her and retrieved the map and his headlamp. He held her kayak steady while she fitted the lamp and origami-flipped the map so the rectangle she needed was facing up, the rest neatly tucked. Map-folding skills. Could she get any more perfect?
Her downlit face screwed up. “The falls are an hour paddle away, at least. Crap, I thought we were making better time.”
“It’d be suicide to do it in the dark.”
“Or in the light.”
“Got a backup optio—?”
“We’ll have to wait till first light,” she said, her frown suggesting her brain had left his in dust. “Set up camp ASAP. We’ll stay on the port side of the river, since he’ll be coming down starboard. I mean, we stay left. Hell, you know what I mean.” She trailed a finger along a thin blue line. “I’ve seen this from the air. A stream that leads to a small clearing—I had a good sweep over it when I was looking for the Danes—it’s a place you might hole up in. Small but protected by a cliff and screened by thick bush.”
“Sounds good.”
“Only problem—it’s a flash flood zone. If the rain starts up, with the melting snow in the tops, we’re screwed. But we’ll be safe enough tonight. We’ll take on the waterfall in the morning.” She switched off the light, but not before a flicker of doubt crossed her face.
“Waterfalls aren’t as dangerous as you think, if you approach them right,” he said. “The trick is to go with the current and not get stuck in the suckback. I can talk you through that.”
“My brother says it’s like being caught in an underwater washing machine. Of course he wouldn’t go near that waterfall.”
Something caught Cody’s attention, on the dark far bank. “Shit, a light,” he whispered, narrowing his eyes. Dozens of lights—a constellation of bluish pinpricks.
“Gotta watch those glowworms.” He didn’t have to look to know she was smiling. “One drop of their lure on your skin and the neurotoxins crawl into your veins. They reach your heart and boom, game over.”
“Whoa, serious?”
“No.”
He flicked his paddle, sprinkling her with water. “It’s not polite to take advantage of the dumb tourist, you know.”
“Oh, I’d take advantage of you any da—”
Her grin died. She looked down at the map and quickly refolded it. Tried to refold it. She didn’t find the right creases. She swore, thrust it into his hands without meeting his eyes and ripped off the lamp. As he put the map to rights, she swept her paddle and pulled away, back straight, focus fixed ahead.
He blew out a long, slow breath. Did she clam up because she hadn’t meant to infer she wanted to jump him, or because she regretted admitting it? And why so flustered? She didn’t strike him as the easily embarrassed type.
Interesting. Was it possible this attraction wasn’t one way?