Hush (8 page)

Knowing that he didn't realize who took care of him day in and day out had just about killed her.

Something must have shown on her face, because Zak moved in closer to drop his voice. “You all right?” His gaze was on her mouth, and he was practically on top of her. His breath moved her hair against her sweaty cheek.

“If by
all right
, you mean happy to still be alive, then yes. I'm most excellent.” Her exposed skin itched, from sweat and the bugs that were feasting on her as though she were a long-awaited banquet. She didn't scratch. There was no point. She did her best to ignore everything. Ignoring the man beside her wasn't quite as easy.

“Is your name really Acadia? You told me
‘Candy
'
last night.”

Lovely. He'd done things to her she didn't even want to think about, and he didn't even know her name. “Acadia,” she told him stiffly. His brother paced several yards ahead. Zak stuck close beside her. Far too close for comfort, and frankly no easy feat, considering the space restraints on the hacked-out path through the dense foliage.

He shot her a glance. He had very nice eyes when he wasn't looking at her as though he wished she'd go somewhere else. A wish they both shared. His eyes were dark-lashed, and a brooding hazel—sometimes green, sometimes a tawny brown that ate the light. And unfriendly.

Sweat stained the front of his once-crisply-ironed shirt, and he'd rolled the sleeves up over his muscled forearms for relief from the unrelenting humidity.

Because of the way the sunlight fell through the trees, Acadia noticed a previously unseen hair-thin scar on the corner of his upper lip, and another high on his right cheek. The cut above his right eye was definitely going to give him another scar. If he lived long enough for the wound to heal.

“So, which is it? Candy or …?”

“You obviously didn't hear me.” Some of her friends occasionally called her
Cady
. But that wasn't often. She wasn't a nickname type of person. The pet name had sounded appealing in the bar the night before. He was not, she didn't need reminding, her
friend
by any stretch of the imagination.

“Last night you didn't even know your
own
name when we were practically having sex all the way up the stairs, down the corridor and—” She sucked in a hot, humid breath. He'd been there. She didn't need to do a verbal reenactment. Besides, his brother was not even three feet away, listening in. She blushed again despite the heat.

“My name,” she reminded him, trying for sophisticated nonchalance, “is Acadia Gray.”

She could smell him even through the lush, wet scent of the jungle. Hot, sweaty male. Not sweaty like the soldiers. His scent was clean and earthy and brought back every vivid memory of every place on his body she'd kissed and tasted the night before … Her heartbeat sped up, and all her girl parts seemed to have antennae tuned in to him.

She waved her bound hands in front of her face and
tried to move ahead of him. It gave her a little comfort being sandwiched between two big, strong guys.

Pinhead-tiny black bugs swarmed in lazy circles inches in front of her nose. Pulling out her insect repellent now would only get her gear confiscated, or worse, subject her to a more thorough search. A large red-and-green-striped leaf sprang out into her path, and she used her knee to push it aside, then scratched an itch on her cheek as something bit her.

“You don't look like the type who'd BASE-jump the falls,” Zak said, sounding annoyed, as if her presence there was an affront to him personally. “What the hell are you doing in Venezuela?”

Acadia resented the implication that she wasn't the bold, daring type. “Looks can be deceiving,” she told him mockingly. Hoping like hell she didn't—“What else would I be doing here?”—lie.
Nerves, damn it
.

“You were going to jump the falls?” He sounded insultingly disbelieving, but she didn't glance back to see his expression.

“I was waiting for my guide. He was picking me up later this morning. Now, I suppose.” God. She wished she'd stop doing that. It was a ridiculous defense mechanism she'd thought she'd outgrown, from when she was an insecure kid. Apparently not. Zakary Stark brought out the worst in her. Which was unfortunate as hell, since she was stuck with him for the duration.

“Is that right? Venezuela's a damned dangerous place for a woman to visit alone.”

“That's very unenlightened of you. Isn't Venezuela a
dangerous place for a man to come to alone?” Judging by the scars on his body, he'd been to some very dangerous places already.

“Yeah. It is. And as I recall, I didn't
come
alone.” Heat rushed to her cheeks at his oh-so-obvious double entendre. But he saved her the embarrassment of floundering for a response as he added, “As it so happens, I traveled here with my brother.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, I was expecting five friends to fly in later this morning. I wasn't planning on—”
Don't say it!
“—being alone for long. They're going to freak out when they arrive and I'm not there.”

An understatement. Shelli, Sharon, Julia, Amber, and Natasha were going to be
frantic
. They'd practically strong-armed her onto the plane because Acadia hadn't wanted to be
this
daring. Sure, she'd reluctantly agreed to step out of her comfort zone, but she'd imagined they'd all go to New York, or maybe be wild and crazy and take a trip to Aruba and be served umbrella drinks at the pool by tanned cabana boys.

Sharon, the boldest of her friends, had dared the group to go to Venezuela. The next thing Acadia knew, she was paying a fortune for the tickets and accepting the itinerary from well-organized Julia. She'd known before her brandnew Cypress Ion WPi waterproof hiking boots touched the ground in Caracas yesterday morning that she was having a mid-something crisis and way in over her head. But by then it was too late to chicken out and turn back.

Zak shrugged, powerful shoulders moving in her peripheral vision. “Your friends will put two and two together and go to the authorities.”

Nice of him to sound half-assed confident, but Acadia was pretty sure that wouldn't achieve anything. The police in Venezuela were pretty much as corrupt as the plethora of kidnappers in the country. They'd go to the American embassy and hope someone there could help. Then they'd run out of money and options and return home to see what they could do from there.

She fell silent, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other in the knee-high grass. As it got hotter, moisture on the foliage evaporated into a steamy hothouse fog that caught in her lungs and made sweat pour down her face. She felt around in one of the pockets on the outside of her pants, checked on the position of the guards—Zak met her eyes as she glanced behind her, and shifted subtly to block their view of her—and surreptitiously pulled out a flat packet of moist towelettes.

“Thanks,” she murmured. Plucking one wipe out of the package, she carefully restuck the seal and shoved it back into the hidden pocket, her mind returning once more to her friends as she wiped her face and throat. They would blame themselves, she knew. They'd go to the police first. Then they'd freak. Natasha's father had served with Acadia's dad at Fort Riley. When Natasha realized there was no trace of her friend, she'd call in the cavalry. Literally.

“Perhaps they'll think you went off with some local guy,” Zak offered after too long a silence.

Acadia choked back a laugh. “Not in a trillion years.” It wouldn't even cross their minds that she might be with some handsome Latin American man having a wild adventure. Going off with strange men wasn't who Acadia Alyssa Gray
was
. She was the leave-the-kids-with-Acadia-on-Friday-night kind of friend. She was predictable, reliable, and, she hated to admit, boring.

“Not that far from the truth,” he corrected, which annoyed the hell out of her.

“You don't have to sound so smug about it,” she retorted waspishly. “It was hardly a red-letter day on my calendar.”

“Really? You pick up men in bars all the time, do you?”

“Isn't that like asking someone if they've stopped beating their wife?”

He chuckled.

Gideon gave a muffled snort of laughter too. His white T-shirt was sweat-stained and blotched green from the leaves they were pushing through.

“Great, so happy I can amuse you guys.” She applied the now warm, moist cloth to her hot cheeks. The mild antiseptic stung the abrasions on her skin, but it smelled fresh. She used it on her hands and as far up her arms as she could maneuver her bound wrists. She wished she could wash the blood off her skin, then pulled her thoughts back from the abyss. Blood splatter on her back was the least of her problems right now.

She tucked the used wipe into another pocket. No littering for Acadia Gray. Even while being kidnapped.
Follow the rules. Do the right thing
. Acadia felt a giggle bubble up in her chest, and ruthlessly tamped down the urge. This was no laughing matter, and she wasn't entirely sure that she'd be able to stop laughing if she started.

“What else do you have in those hidden pockets?” Zak asked.

The whole point of hidden pockets was that they were freaking
hidden
. None of the soldiers had bothered to pat her down, thanks to their scary boss. If he talked about what she was carrying, someone was sure to want to see exactly what it was. “How do you know I have pockets?”

“Unless you're a magician planning on pulling a rabbit out of your ass, I'm presuming the aspirin from earlier and that wipe were secreted in that outfit you're wearing. What else is in there? Cough everything up, Miss Gray. Our lives might depend on whatever you're carrying.”

“You want me to dump everything on the ground right now?” Acadia was rapidly discovering a hidden talent for sarcasm just as pointed as his.

“No. But once it makes sense, I want to inventory everything you brought.” He paused. “How heavy are your clothes?”

“An extra eighteen pounds, that's all.” Although, after walking for what seemed like days, the weight seemed to be increasing with every step. “I have just about everything we might need,” she admitted, sotto voce. “Except, unfortunately, a weapon.”

He came up right beside her, his arm brushing hers. “You'd be surprised what can be made into one.”

“I know how to make a shiv.” How hard could it be?

His smile widened. It didn't reach his eyes, but he showed his white teeth and a dent of a dimple in his lean right cheek. “Ah. Learned no doubt while you were incarcerated for your life of crime.”

“I'm a quick study.”
Make of that what you like, smart-ass.

“I'm starting to think you just might have hidden depths,” he said dryly.

They walked for about five minutes while she mulled that over, then she blurted, “I don't. Have any hidden depths, that is.” Honest to God, she could keep lying, but in this scenario it wasn't in her best interests to mislead him. She had no idea what—if anything—he was planning, but making him think her capable of things she was incapable of doing would be not only stupid but hellishly dangerous as well. “Look, I'm not exactly what you think I am—”

“A pretty woman way the hell out of her depth?”

“Yes. That.” He thought she was pretty? “Wait, no, I
am
exactly that. Out of my depth, I mean,” she admitted. “I wasn't exactly honest last night. I'm not an exotic dancer. I work at Jim's Sporting Goods store in Junction City, Kans—”

“Kansas?”
His laugh sounded rusty, and he stopped to stare at her. His eyes looked very green and were deceptively filled with laughter. Clearly a trick of the light.

Acadia scowled. “Yes, Kansas. What's so funny?”

He started walking again before the guards could prod him. “Keep moving. Nothing, Dorothy.”

Infuriating man. “You weren't held as a baby, were you?”

“I have pictures.”

Acadia made a rude noise. “Obviously Photoshopped.”

Gideon chuckled as he shoved enormous, leathery leaves out of his way, then held them so she could pass. “Zak was born sparring.”

He'd clearly had plenty of practice. Acadia changed the subject. “Kidnapping is a pervasive problem in Venezuela, were you aware of that when you came?” She'd read about it, but of course had thought it wouldn't apply to her. For God's sake, she had no idea how she could have ignored the compelling statistics and the probability of being kidnapped herself. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing you or anything,” she added, “but it's good to know some facts. Caracas has one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.”

“Fortunately,” Zak murmured, his voice Sahara dry, “we're not
in
Caracas at the moment.”

“And it's even
higher
in outlying areas where there's no pretense of law and order.”

“Aren't you a font of information.” He didn't sound like a fan.

“I am, actually,” she replied, unperturbed. “They even have a National Counter Kidnapping Commission. In fact—” Now she remembered the data, anyway—“In fact, kidnappings have increased from forty to over
sixty
percent in the last year alone. And that's just the ones reported to the police. Most aren't.” Because, reported or not, the kidnappers were rarely caught, and even then, rarely charged.

Zak said nothing as he dropped a step behind her, so she continued hopefully, “It's unlikely that they'd walk us all this way just to kill us later, right?” Pointless to mention that the guerrillas could do worse than kill them. He'd know that.