Chapter 1
This was bad. Really bad!
It wasn’t just the heat and humidity that had Ivy on edge. Nor could she attribute the bad feeling down to the fact that her boots were wet, her feet sinking into the muck underneath her. Oh, and Ivy didn’t even want to think about the possibility of leeches hiding in the mud. She could handle snakes and bugs, but leeches…nope!
Ivy pressed her back against the rough trunk of the tree, ignoring the pain when a thorn – or something – digging into the delicate skin between her shoulder blades. That pain was much easier than what these men might do to her if she were…
“Disini!” someone called out.
…discovered, she thought with a silent groan.
The miserable, frightening horror that hit her as a voice called out, “Over here!” almost caused her to squeak out loud. She kept quiet though, in the off chance that she hadn’t been discovered. But when strong, filthy hands yanked her out of her leaf-covered hiding place, she knew she’d been found and the situation shifted from “dire and scary” to “I wish I weren’t here”. Yep, her day just kept getting worse.
Maybe the broken heel on her favorite shoe this morning didn’t count. That kind of problem was more along the lines of “Hey – I can’t find my Chapstick” versus, “Why is this guy pointing a gun at my face?” and not bad enough to rank. Not when one applied logic and put everything else that had gone wrong into perspective. Getting caught by a group of lawless, Indonesian bandits ranked way higher on the “Bad Day Scale”. So much higher on that scale as to make a broken heel seem laughable.
As soon as the disgusting hands started to drag her away, she panicked. She didn’t want to be captured and tortured. And she really didn’t want to be this group of bandits’ exotic dancer for the night – or any other kind of dancer, for that matter. She was just about to start screaming when, at that precise moment, the deliciously dark brown eyes of a certain Navy SEAL popped into her head. She might truly hate Daisy’s brother Gunner with an intensity that bordered on the obsessive, but he’d given her, Marilee, and Daisy lessons in self-defense. During those lessons, he’d covered this type of scenario many times and Ivy had loved trying to best the big guy.
How many times had he laughed at her in the gym when she’d tried to bring him down, only to find herself flat on her back or…or in some other outrageous position with him on top of her? Yeah, the enormous brute loved to challenge her. So far during his “mandatory” self-defense classes, he’d always won, but she was getting better. She might not have brought him down yet, but she wasn’t such an easy target any longer. Gunner had taught her some nasty moves that she’d been hesitant to try on him or any of his SEAL buddies that came home with him for holidays or long weekends. But now…with the bandit’s grimy hands sliding over her body, ostensibly searching for weapons but really, the little man was just copping a feel…she was grateful for all of those lessons. She was going to have to thank Gunner, even though she’d rather eat leeches.
Remembering everything Gunner had taught her, she carefully scanned the vicious-looking group of men standing around, acting like they’d just accomplished a moon landing. Meanwhile, she counted heads, gauged their fitness levels and their organizational capabilities, not to mention the discipline of the group. Three men, she counted, scanning the area carefully so they didn’t realize what she was doing. Yeah, she could take on three men. Gunner might be the most annoying, obnoxious, irritating jerk she’d ever met, but he was six feet, six inches of muscles bound together with testosterone and bad jokes, most of them directed at her. She knew he did it just to annoy her. The man was just…
Okay, not a good time to berate the man, she told herself.
Mentally chastising herself, she focused back on her current predicament, promising herself lots of extra Gunner-bashing time later.
Hiding from these idiots hadn’t worked. Time for plan B. Ivy wasn’t completely sure what Plan B would be, but she remembered what Gunner had taught her, she’d figure it out.
Shaking away her irritation over Gunner and his teasing, she focused, counting heads again. Yep, still only three men. Three men who were shorter than she was, which wasn’t such a surprise, actually. At five feet, nine inches, she was taller than a lot of men. Not towering over them, but tall enough to intimidate most of them.
And thankfully, she wasn’t built like Marilee, who was obviously female with her lush double D breasts and her pretty, soft cheeks. Nope, Ivy was tall and slender with barely-there breasts. Oh, they were there. But just…not obvious.
Her height and her lack of obvious breasts were helpful for the first time in her life. The men weren’t overly interested in her, but they seemed to be unusually worried about her camera, for some reason.
They were arguing about something, but they were speaking too quickly. She couldn’t translate fast enough. What in the world?
“Itu hanya gambar bunga!” she slowly stated, probably slaughtering the pronunciation as she explained she’d “only taken pictures of flowers”. One man, possibly the leader, looked at her curiously. His grubby fingers yanked the camera out of the other bandit’s hands and started pressing buttons. “Please!” she gasped, cringing as the man pressed so many buttons, she feared he would delete the pictures she’d meticulously captured over the past few days. Ivy had come out here to this particular spot in the sweltering jungle, wanting to catch the light exactly right for one specific flower. It bloomed only every few years, and only when the temperatures and precipitation were perfect. It had taken four days of trekking out here through the heat, humidity, and mud to catch the lighting at the perfect angle and intensity so that it highlighted the amazing colors and peculiar shadows of the flower. There were other pictures she’d taken along the route of different flowers. There was even been a pretty field of flowers that were like poppies, but were something else. Something she’d never seen before.
She didn’t want to lose any of her precious pictures just because a group of gross, sweaty idiots thought she was doing something wrong. She had worked too hard! Today was her last day in Indonesia, and she was more than ready to go home. Cringing when the guy pressed a few more buttons, she prayed that the pictures wouldn’t be deleted. The flower, the light, the shadows…she’d worked so hard! She’d waited an extra few weeks to come, just so that particular flower would be in full bloom and what she’d captured had been extraordinary!
And now, just because some idiot renegades with too many weapons and not enough brains had caught her, all of her work was going to be erased by grubby, revolting hands that probably hadn’t seen soap in months.
Then the guy froze, looking at one of the pictures and cocked his head. He called over another man, one she hadn’t seen before, and showed him the picture. This guy was a bit bigger and definitely uglier, with more filth on his face but slightly better clothes than the others. He frowned at the picture -not the one of the special flower but a brightly lit image she’d taken of the field of flowers on the perimeter of the jungle. Then he looked up at her.
Ivy’s stomach clenched with dread.
Remembering what Gunner had taught her, she remained as calm as possible. “Itu hanya gambar bunga,” she repeated. “They are just pictures of flowers.” What was the issue?
“Bawa dia!” the new guy snapped, stuffing her camera back into the canvas bag and tossing it over his shoulder. “Letakkan dia dengan yang lainnya.”
Ivy spoke Spanish and French fluently, a bit of Italian, and a smattering of other languages, including Indonesian. But she wasn’t even close to being fluent in the difficult language. She’d learned enough for this trip to explain her actions, find a bathroom, restaurant or her hotel and get directions. But she understood enough words to know that the guy in charge said to “take her” and something about “others”.
From worse to worse-er still!
The guy standing guard behind her shoved her forward and, once she regained her balance, she twisted around, looking down at him. He was at least six inches shorter than she was, and Ivy was certain that she could take him. But she waited, biding her time until she had an obvious escape plan.
Four of them, now. Yeah, she might not like Gunner in any way, but he’d taught her well. She knew she could take at least two of them down with the kicks he’d taught her. And then run. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exactly sure where she would run. After hiding, she’d lost track of her pathway back to civilization.
Not something she would admit to Gunner. “Always be aware,” he’d lectured the three of them during his training sessions. “Always know where you are.” Blah blah blah. Yeah, she might be mocking him in her head, but deep down inside…hmmm…maybe not so deep down at the moment…she knew that he was right.
Thankfully, the men hadn’t tied her hands. She wasn’t sure why, but she was grateful. It would be better if she could somehow get her camera bag back, but the expensive equipment wasn’t worth her life. If she could get away, she’d run, leaving her bag behind in a heartbeat.
Then she saw the truck and swallowed painfully. A truck wasn’t good. A truck meant…
She didn’t wait any longer. She couldn’t. A truck meant she would be taken somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Time for action, she decided. Not wanting to act precipitously, she waited another few steps, gauging their movement and positions as the four of them traipsed through the jungle.
The ragtag group was only about fifty feet from the truck when she saw her opportunity.
With a twist, she brought her leg out and tripped Gross-Dude Number One, who was holding her arm, then spun around so that she smacked her elbow into his nose - hard. He went down with a soft thud into the muck of the jungle floor!
Gross-Dude Number Two was too slow to react. So gave Ivy several precious seconds to prepare her next attack as he stared blankly at his colleague. Thinking fast, she swung, slamming her heel into his stomach. While he was bent over, gasping for breath, she twisted again, smashing her boot heel into his face.
Gross-Dude Number Two down.
She didn’t wait for the other two. She took off at a dead run. Moments later, bullets zinged by her head so she ducked, weaving through the jungle leaves, dodging behind trees as best she could.
Ivy had no idea where she was going. Her direction was simply “away”. Away from the men shooting at her. Away from the truck that would have taken her some place bad. Away from the flying bullets.
Ignoring the painful stitch in her side and her burning lungs, she hurried, ducking and dodging, zigzagging so the remaining bandits couldn’t aim as easily. No, Gunner hadn’t taught her to shift and dodge, but she’d looked it up. She’d read everything she could about Navy SEAL training. Not because she liked the guy or anything like that. She wasn’t interested in what he was going through, she told herself as she ducked behind another tree. She’d looked up training techniques because she wanted to beat him. Just once, she wanted to knock that guy on his butt.
Now her research was coming in handy, she thought as the voices faded, the bullets stopping. She was too far away now for their weapons, but still, she ran. Hard. Fast. The whole time, she kept thinking about Gunner and what he might do if he were in this kind of a situation.
Thankfully, her training kicked in and she was able to keep on running when others probably would have been gasping for breath.
When she wasn’t traveling the world, taking pictures of interesting things she saw through her camera lens, she lived in LowPoint, Kentucky and she loved running, doing it every day. Ivy could lose herself in a long run, just relaxing into the effort. Whenever possible, she ran up the mountain pathways which almost encircled LowPoint. When there was too much snow on the ground, she ran along the highway into Louisville. Whenever she heard that Gunner was coming into town, she’d leave, flying off to some distant place. But when she wasn’t fast enough or when her friend, Daisy, didn’t give her enough warning, she’d go off on long runs to stay out of Gunner’s path. She ran to avoid seeing his big, glorious shoulders or those monstrously huge muscles. And she ran so that he couldn’t find her. Ivy ran to ignore her fury at his constant teasing and…well, she ran in order to ignore the fascinating pull of his broad shoulders and massive chest.
Slowing down, Ivy paced herself. She had run marathons in the past and knew how to breathe, knew how to regulate her pace in order to go the distance. Jungles weren’t paved streets, but the concepts were the same. The men in the grungy uniforms didn’t look to be well fed or in shape, but that didn’t stop her. They knew the terrain and she didn’t. They had a vehicle. She was on foot. She had food in her pockets and money hidden in the seams, but she had no idea where she was. So having food might be fine, but if she was running into an unknown area, she didn’t have enough food. And money wouldn’t help her if no one was around to exchange it for help.
Ivy ignored all of those issues, focusing on the higher priority of not getting caught!