CHAPTER EIGHT

 

Livvy

 

Josh and Thomas had taken a few minutes to go over the map Josh brought back to our table while Thomas stuffed another vegetable filled arepa into his mouth, and then he'd topped off his canteen and grabbed a few other items from his backpack and left.

He'd given me one last intense look, paused as if considering something, but in the end he'd just said, "See you soon." I'd nodded and watched him walk away, ducking around carts and moving swiftly between people walking in the street. I glanced at Josh, and when I looked back to where Thomas had been only a second before, he was gone. I imagined him slipping into the trees beyond the town, moving like a wild thing, something agile and predatory. As I stood staring at that far-off greenery, knowing he was somewhere within it, my heart lodged in my throat. What kind of man ran—literally—toward peril to seek revenge for a girl he didn't know? A hunter. That's what he was. That was the low simmering danger I'd sensed in him the first time we met. It wasn't cruelty or malevolence, though. It was goodness. He wasn't only a hunter. He was a protector.

When I'd looked at Josh, he'd been watching me. "You care about him," he stated.

I'd blinked, taken off guard. "I . . . barely know him." I'd looked in the direction where Thomas had disappeared and then into Josh's face again. "He's doing a job for me." I knew Josh understood we weren’t married. Josh was in the same line of work—he probably understood perfectly well it was a safety measure and nothing more.

But Josh had given me a cocky sort of grin that made me bristle for some reason, as if he thought he knew something I didn’t. I almost told him the nature of the job I'd hired Thomas to do. If he knew, he wouldn't joke.

"Whatever you say." Josh had winked, and I'd shaken my head. In the end, his teasing smile had disarmed me.

I'd gone back inside Rosaria's with Josh, and he'd taken me through the back doors of the restaurant, into the relatively small kitchen and up a narrow flight of stairs to where the family lived. I didn't want to intrude where I surely wouldn't be wanted, and told Josh as much but he shook his head and said, "I need to check on Graciela and I'm not going to leave you downstairs alone. You're with me. They won't mind."

I was still reluctant, but there was no way I’d stay downstairs by myself, so I entered the room with him, stepping to the side of the doorway and leaning against the wall. That's when I caught sight of the little girl in bed, lying under a white sheet, her eyes open as she stared at the ceiling. My heart plummeted to my feet and my throat tightened. Her face was so swollen and bruised I had no idea what she really looked like. Oh God. I clenched my eyes shut, taking a deep breath. A pack of men had done this to the small girl who was barely a teenager lying so still in that bed.

Doubtful she'll ever have kids of her own.

Josh had called them animals, but they were worse than animals—they'd done this to her for fun. I felt the food I'd eaten only half an hour before rise in my throat but forced myself to swallow it down. The men's laughter came back to me now, the way it had sounded as we'd stood behind that tree. It'd been gleeful, and at the time, I'd had no clue what they might have found so funny, but now I was sickened at the thought of anyone laughing over what had been done to this child. My God, my God.

Now I understood the way Thomas's body had tensed, the way his jaw had hardened and the icy anger in his eyes. The need to exact justice. The desire to make sure the men who did this were stopped before they hurt anyone else. But at the time, Thomas hadn't even fully comprehended what they’d done. Now I understood why he'd gone after them. Now I cheered him on. He hadn't seen this girl before he'd made his decision, but he must have seen others like her. He must have known.

And helplessly, I handed a piece of my heart to him though he was miles away.

You care about him.

Yes. Only it felt more . . . complicated than that. I cared about the man who was exacting revenge on behalf of this helpless girl and her family. I cared about the man who was ensuring my safety as he led me through dangerous territory. I cared about the man who had so hesitantly stroked my hair, my back, as I shook in the warm cradle of his arms, my heart aching for human affection.

A man sat near the window, unmoving, his back bent, eyes red-rimmed and stark. I saw rage in his expression, but also a helplessness that cut me to the core. Graciela's father? I looked away, hardly able to bear the incontestable agony on his face.

Josh seemed to be checking Graciela's vitals as he spoke in quiet Spanish to her mother. He seemed to be content with how she was at the moment, because he patted her mother on her shoulder, gave an encouraging smile and turned toward me. I stood, following him out the door and back down the stairs.

When we returned to the restaurant, a new waitress had appeared. The young woman was shapely and gorgeous with dark hair pulled into a low ponytail, and dark eyes that featured long, sweeping lashes. I tucked my own unwashed hair behind my ear, realizing how sweaty and unkempt I must look, especially next to this goddess.

She caught sight of Josh, her eyes lingering as she smiled provocatively. She spared me a quick glance but turned her gaze immediately back to Josh, saying something in Spanish. Josh nodded, gesturing to a table by the window.

I joined Josh at the table, peeking at him as I sat down. He was a handsome man, obviously in great shape—clearly a soldier like Thomas. But he was different too. He didn't have the quiet intensity Thomas had, the watchfulness. He didn't move with quite the same predatory grace. He didn't have eyes that changed from ice to sun-warmed stone in a single heartbeat. He didn't—

Geez, Livvy. What's wrong with you? Why are you comparing them?

"You worried about him?"

I released a gust of breath. "No. I mean, yes." I shook my head. "I mean, I understand why he went after those men. I just . . . don't want him to get hurt."

He regarded me for a moment, his expression serious, that joking glint he seemed to have in his eyes more often than not suddenly gone. "Not every woman would be so understanding." He tilted his head, studying me. "I see a strength in you, Livvy." He paused. "It takes a strong woman to love a man like him."

I blinked at him. Love? He really had the wrong idea. Shaking my head on a smile, I said, "I'm sure it does. But it's not like that with us. Like I said—"

"I know what you said."

Frowning, I opened my mouth to speak when the beautiful Colombian waitress approached our table, her hips swaying, gaze still fixed on Josh. Josh reclined back, watching her in return, and I almost rolled my eyes. Talk about awkward. I'd never felt more like a third wheel in my life. Of course, I supposed I couldn't exactly blame her—Josh was good-looking, and at the moment, he was the town hero.

The drink called refajo that Josh ordered for me—beer mixed with a tangy soft drink—was crisp and bittersweet and I had one, then another, resisting a third because I didn't want to be comatose when Thomas returned. And because I was in a strange country where, at the moment, I was essentially alone. I knew Josh was assuring my safety, but he was busy flirting with the beautiful waitress named Carmen, and I really just wanted to be alone with my thoughts, so I wandered to a table in the courtyard on the side of the building, took out my journal, and pretended to write in it.

Mostly, I just doodled, letting my mind wander. I thought about Alec, thought back to a couple of weeks before he'd disappeared. I'd been sitting in the car waiting for him to come out of a restaurant where we'd ordered takeout. As he'd exited, a woman was going in, and he hadn't held the door for her. He'd headed to the car and smiled as he approached and I'd thought, he isn't my dream man. Those exact words had moved through my brain. But then I'd chastised myself for being petty. He was good to me. He was attentive and complimentary. So what if he was sometimes careless with strangers? So what if he forgot to hold doors or offer his seat to old women? So what if he sometimes seemed oblivious to those around him? But . . . maybe it did matter. Maybe it was okay that it mattered to me. Maybe I'd dismissed it too quickly as petty when it was really important.

Or maybe I was comparing him unfairly to a man who not only held doors, but exacted revenge for girls he'd never met. Before this, I hadn't known men like Thomas really existed. And in the real world, they didn't. So no, I wouldn't compare Alec to him in that way. It wasn't fair.

But how would I know how I truly felt for Alec unless I confronted him? How would I know anything unless I found him and listened to his story? However he'd ended up here—and for whatever reason—the natural disasters had trapped him. He didn't have any resources, any money here in Colombia. But I did. I could get to him, and so I would. Family. The rest . . . well, the rest was up in the air.

But part of me was angry now. A man I’d known less than forty-eight hours had just avenged injustice that was not his own. With his bare hands. Yet, Alec, the reason I was here, had run away with his tail between his legs rather than talk to me. His fiancée.

Oh Alec, why didn't you come to me? Why did you run rather than face your struggles like an adult?

I continued to doodle, my mind wandering as Carmen's flirtatious laughter floated to where I sat, Josh's deep chuckle breaking through my meandering thoughts every now and again. I took the last sip from my drink and squinted out into the street.

And that's when I saw him.

He was walking toward me, his gait smooth and purposeful—that masculine grace so familiar to me now. I set my pad on the table, standing slowly, watching. I couldn't look away. No woman could have. He looked like every quintessential hero walking into some dusty town in need of saving, there to do just that. Beautiful. Powerful. Finally. My heart was pounding against my ribs, and my eyes were glued to him as he moved nearer. His T-shirt stuck to his chest, showcasing the ripped but lean muscles of his upper body. The man had broken a sweat—at last. And it'd only taken a four-hour run and a fight to make him perspire. His jeans hung on his hips and there was a knife of some sort strapped to one muscular thigh. Where did that come from? It hadn't been there when he left, so I could only assume he'd taken it from one of the men he'd gone after. Holy shit.

Josh and Carmen moved next to me, but I only noticed them from my peripheral vision. I swallowed down the lump in my throat, my eyes glued to Thomas's face as I tried to see in his expression what had happened. But truly? I only cared that he was back.

"Find them?" Josh asked.

Thomas's eyes were locked with mine, something fierce in his expression as his gaze moved down my body once and back to my eyes as if assessing I was okay. But at Josh's question, he looked at his friend and nodded once, a quick movement of chin to chest, his mouth set. "Yeah."

No more was said. Josh clapped him on the back once as he turned. "Let's go tell her father."

"I can stay here—" I started to say, but Thomas took my hand in his, his grip strong, his long fingers wrapped securely around mine, leading me with him as he followed Josh to the bedroom upstairs.

I couldn't see Thomas's face when he first saw the girl lying in the bed, but he let go of my hand and walked slowly to the man sitting in the chair near the window. His body was stiff, his position unchanged. He was his daughter’s sentry—perhaps the only thing he could offer at this point. Thomas stood over him, and the man raised his head slowly. Thomas reached down, removing the knife that was strapped around his thigh—the knife I now saw had streaks of dried blood on it—and placed it in the man's palm. My heart constricted. Pain welled inside me as the man's face broke. "¿Están muertos?" Muertos. Dead. Are they dead?

Thomas nodded once.

Graciela's father took a deep, shuddery breath, his shoulders coming back as he sat up straight, glancing once at his daughter and then to Thomas. 

"Bien," he said, his voice stronger than it had been before. "Gracias." His voice cracked as he said the word, but then he gathered the strength Thomas seemed to have infused in him. He ran the knife over his palm, traces of the blood on it leaving dark red streaks on his own skin. I wanted to cringe, but I didn't. The man looked at Thomas, his jaw set, eyes filled with life once more. "Eres un salvador." I knew that word—salvador—knew what he'd said to Thomas.

You are a savior.

 

**********

 

Josh left a few hours later, after a dinner that turned into a small, albeit, low-key social gathering. Justice had been served, and yet the little girl upstairs still had a long road of recovery ahead of her. We ate dinner and then said goodbye to Josh. He winked at me, saying, "Stay strong, Livvy," before turning away. Thomas walked him to the edge of the road where they stood talking for a little while, Thomas relating the details of whatever had happened earlier that day I assumed. Part of me wanted to know, but another part understood that knowing would change me in some vital way. Maybe for the good, maybe not, and I couldn't decide so I didn't ask.

You are a savior.

Carmen stood watching Josh leave, a petulant, disappointed expression on her face, and when Thomas started walking back, I watched her as she watched him, the smile returning. Her eyes darted over to me and her chin rose as she smiled that cat smile of hers. I bristled at the non-subtle message, though he wasn't mine and never would be. Apparently it meant nothing to Carmen that the man's wife was there. God, was I seriously jealous?

Graciela's family closed the restaurant, but Rosaria invited us to stay the night in their loft. Truthfully, I would have liked to move on from that small town where the pain of what happened to Graciela hung in the air and the beautiful Carmen was eyeing Thomas like a cat eyes cream, but the sun was beginning to set, and it was about the time we would have found camping for the night anyway. And more than that, Thomas had just run for hours and gone through who knew what else. He had to be exhausted. I would not suggest we start walking again so he had to sleep on a hard ground when we were being offered actual bedding.

The men started up a card game at a table near the fire and invited Thomas to play. He gave me a glance. "You mind?" he asked as if I really was his wife and he needed my permission.

"As long as you win, honey."

Thomas gave me a slow smile. "Oh I mean to, sweetheart." I stared at him, my stomach doing a half roll before I looked away. Thomas took a seat with the rest of the men and leaned back nonchalantly, sipping a bottle of beer. I watched him throw down cards, that poker face he often wore serving him well in the moment. They were only playing for coins, but Thomas had a small pile in front of him within only a few minutes.

Graciela's mother set a beer in front of me, glancing at the table where all the men sat, speaking to me in heavily accented English. "Your man is very . . . valiente." Your man. "And very good." She shot a look in Thomas's direction, her expression worried, and when I followed her gaze, I saw that Carmen was leaning in to him, whispering something in his ear. He said something to her, and she leaned her head back and laughed, the silken waves of her hair flowing down her back.

I looked at Rosaria, giving her a half-hearted smile, feeling a strange clenching inside. Fierce. Good. "Yes, he is." But not mine.

She nodded, glancing at him and then at Carmen, who was sidling up to the table, checking drinks, her hip brushing against Thomas's shoulder as he took a long drink from his beer bottle.

An adobe fireplace had been lit and soft music played as people from the village gathered, many of whom had been working in the fields all day. Word had obviously spread about what happened and while the atmosphere was definitely not festive, it was clear the people there could celebrate the fact that the men who had hurt Graciela and been terrorizing their town in a multitude of ways, would never, ever be back.

Carmen wove through the group, her sway seductive as she shot heated glances at Thomas. My chest felt tight as I watched him watch her, an unreadable expression on his face. But his gray eyes were simmering in the hot glow of the fire. Her message was clear, and why shouldn't he take her up on her "offer"? Athletes often needed a sexual outlet after an intense sporting event. I was sure it was the same for soldiers too. All that adrenaline, that explosion of testosterone, and it made sense that a man would need to work it out of his system somehow. God, what would it be like as the recipient of all that pent-up male energy? What would it feel like to be ravaged by a warrior? Ravaged? I snorted internally. Really, Livvy? I'd never even considered such a thing and yet . . . why was I suddenly overheated? Your man, he is very fierce. Why did I have the urge to squeeze my thighs together to ease the tension building there? God, could I really blame Carmen?

Rosaria leaned in as Carmen walked by and said some seemingly harsh words to her as she glanced at Thomas, but Carmen only laughed, throwing a few words back at the woman before walking away. Rosaria shot me a look, filled with both sympathy and embarrassment, and I blushed before turning away. She obviously felt badly for me that Carmen was flirting with my "husband" and why that humiliated me I didn't know.

Carmen walked to the middle of the courtyard and started swaying to the music, raising her arms above her head and moving her hips in a way that almost made me blush. Her eyes were trained on Thomas as she danced, but I didn't dare glance at him. I couldn’t bear seeing the lust in his expression. What man wouldn't want her? I sat stiffly, turning my head away from her show.

The game came to an end and Thomas stood, his solid form moving through the shadows and dancing light of the fire as he turned the corner of the building. My heart beat dully in my chest when I noticed Carmen following him, rounding the corner where he, too, had disappeared. Had he told her to meet him? I felt itchy under my skin, cold, alone. I pictured them meeting in the darkness, pictured her pressing that curvy body against him. Would they have sex right there against the wall, his pants around his hips as he pounded into her and she bit her lip not to cry out and alert someone to their presence? Would he wear that same look of intensity when he came or would his eyes soften? Heat? A billowing cloud of red filled my chest.

I knew how he smelled, how it felt to be molded to him. I'd felt his solid arms around me and something had come over me, a deep need to be held, to be comforted, to soak in the strength of him. For once I didn't want to stand on my own two feet. I wanted to rely on someone else, to lean on them and know they wouldn't let me down. Just once. I'd never felt that way with Alec, hadn't believed I’d craved it. But I did. Thomas had made me feel safe enough to admit it. Thomas had allowed me to hold on to him tightly because he hadn’t really had any other choice. But now he did have a choice, and he was choosing a beautiful, available woman. And why shouldn't he?

I find company when I want it.

I stood, jostling a man who was standing next to the bench where I'd been sitting. I couldn't stay down here. I couldn't watch them return, had no interest in seeing what I was sure would be a contented smirk on her face, and a drowsy satisfaction in his gray eyes. I didn’t want to see more sympathy in Rosaria’s eyes. No.

I had no right to these feelings. My mind was all twisted and confused. I needed to go to bed and end this day. I needed to disappear and allow Thomas the room to get the release he rightly deserved. He was my guide on this trip, and despite the roles we played, he owed me nothing more than getting me to the agreed-upon location. Tomorrow I would wake up and the purpose of this trip would be clear again. But my own internal comfort didn't resonate. Instead, it felt like I was lying to myself.