Perfect Stranger (11 page)

Chloe reached out and
pinched the black chip from Jericho's fingers, holding it to the
light for a better view. "So they
knew
they were right on top of us."
Chloe sucked in a breath. "Literally, the guy nearly stepped on us.
Shouldn’t he have known we were there?"

Jericho jerked the chip back, leaving Chloe
to whirl around and give his back a glare. "No. The transmitter
only gives a two to three hundred foot radius. I'm sure they didn't
go far. They are no doubt waiting for us to move again." He stomped
over to a larger root and laid the chip on top. He lifted his gun
by the barrel then brought the butt of the weapon down onto the
transmitter, smashing the small electronic piece.

"That should fix our little problem," he
said. "For a while, anyway. We can't stay here through." Jericho
thrust a look at her over his shoulder and moved to put the
supplies back in the pack.

Chloe rushed to help.

Jericho reached over and grabbed her hand
gently as she picked up a canteen. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I'm sorry for
being so rough with you."

She glanced up, catching his warring
emotions. "It's okay," she murmured, starting to zip the pack. She
tingled all over when Jericho slid his fingers up her arm, the
rough strength of his hand, mixed with the heady image of his
body—a body that offered everything to make a woman throb—doing
strange things to her.

He tipped her chin up. "Really, I should
have checked the packs first."

Chloe nodded and closed the zipper. "I
understand. Or I think I do."

Jericho stood with her, grabbing up his
shirt. As he pulled the t-shirt over his head, Chloe was
momentarily lost in the ripple of sinew from his chest all the way
down to his lower abdomen. She watched until the last hint of skin
was covered. Jericho slung on his pack and the SCAR, oblivious to
her lustful stare as he adjusted the straps.

"Let's hurry. The jungle will get dark
before we know it." He checked his watch. "Maybe three or four more
hours of light."

Chloe followed him through
the gallery forest, along a stream. In the
Cerrado,
which she knew to be a
savanna region—she
had
done a little research during her days of excitement over her
upcoming nuptials and honeymoon—gallery forests came up densely
around streams in the savanna. Canopy cover and larger vegetation
grew abundantly around the higher moister area and more protected
landscape. There was a stream flowing some distance to her left,
not so far away that she couldn’t hear the flow.

"This cover won't last forever," Jericho
told her along the way. "But we have to stay out of open
savanna."

Awhile later, Chloe trudged through a
murky-but-shallow stream. Jericho helped her up the opposite bank
into a grove of strangler figs, and their roots seemed unearthly to
Chloe. She ran her hand over the huge, threaded bases. The tree was
comprised of what looked like many tiny trunks woven and grown
together, open in spaces, closed tight in others.

There were large ferns and what looked like
what her mom called “elephant ears”. Mom grew them by the pool in
pots, but these towered over Chloe, their heart-shaped leaves
giants to those she'd seen before. She looked admiringly overhead
at the canopy as Jericho pulled her along.

A baby squirrel monkey chattered to another
that Chloe assumed was his mother on a branch high above in the
canopy layer, the emergent layer far above them, unseen from the
forest floor for the most part.

"
Aww
, look." Chloe pointed as the
little monkey took off across the branch and swooped himself up
into the leaves only to drop down again. "He's playing."

Jericho glanced up and then back to Chloe,
shaking his head. "Did you forget we are running for our
lives?"

Chloe huffed. "Might as well enjoy the
scen—"

"
Ssh
." Jericho held up a
finger.

Chloe's heart skipped a beat. Her eyes
widened as she looked around for signs of danger.

"That way," he said, pointing. "Do you hear
the waterfall?"

Her momentary fear instantly drained away,
and she dropped the hand that had come to cover her heart.
"Waterfall? From that little stream," she asked disbelievingly.

"No, that's not the only water-way to source
this jungle." Jericho snorted and shook his head as he looked over
the landscape. "Has to be something larger, this area may be part
of a wetland even. Won't be surprised if we don’t run into some
swamp," he said, pushing through larger brush and holding the
branches back for Chloe to pass though.

She grimaced at the clawing vines as she
pressed through the gap, but stopped short and squealed at a loud
hiss. Jericho whirled around, and she gasped as he kicked a snake
with the toe of his boot, tossing the creature from their path.
Chloe grabbed at Jericho's shoulders from behind, watching the
snake slither away with another hiss.

Jericho chuckled at her, but she made a
point to stick close from then on, watching their feet more than
the surroundings. A while later, they came through another strand
of thick brush, and Jericho stopped short at the little scene
before them.

Chloe gasped, looking over his shoulder.
"Oh, my, that is beautiful!"

"
That
is camp for the night," he told
her.

Chloe looked excitedly at the little pool
under the waterfall. The water was crystal clear over smooth rocks
and white sand at the edges. It grew to a dark, tropical blue as
the water deepened under the fall, which rose about thirty feet
above.

Impressively large ferns and more huge
heart-shaped leaves scattered around the larger rocks on the bank.
Banana trees with large, long leaves towered over her with a
red-and-green macaw and a bright-green smaller parrot tearing at
the leaves of the tree. Below them, a scattering of fan palms grew
on a mound. A colorfully beaked toucan took flight, swooping
overhead and left the area.

Chloe turned in a circle, enchanted by the
surroundings, and truthfully, for a moment, she forgot all about
the men hunting them.

"Here." Jericho startled her, lifting the
straps of her pack off her shoulders.

"Thanks," Chloe said, moving her arms back
to allow him to take the pack from her. When she was free of the
pack, she scrunched her shoulders to loosen the sore muscles there
and in her neck.

"You should eat something," he told her,
going to the twin kauri tree. Jericho slid down its massive base
below where the tree split into two separate trunks. He pulled a
pack onto his lap to begin rummaging for MREs, tearing one open for
her.

Chloe, too, went to the tree and sat beside
Jericho, accepting the opened MRE he handed her. She had not
realized until then that she hadn't had anything except a banana
and coffee at breakfast. Chloe happily dove into the food. Tonight,
she was surprised that the thing didn’t taste too awfully bad to
her. But then, she was ravenous.

"This one is actually good." She chuckled,
several minutes later, as she scooped out the last spoonful.

Jericho snorted. "Finally got used to them,
did you?"

Chloe smiled. She set the package aside, by
her pack. The food reminded her of her last meal with the
Carvalhos, and her mood instantly lagged. "Do you think Miguél and
his family are okay? Will those men kill them?"

Jericho gave her a stern look. "We knew this
would happen. We couldn’t go all this way and anything be easy,
Chloe." He sighed. "You're not used to this life though. You
haven’t seen the things I have." A hint of compassion swam in his
gaze.

Tears began to glaze her vision as Chloe
thought of the children. "Stop hedging my questions. Will they have
to leave their home because we were there?" She hugged herself. The
idea was horrid.

"Come here," Jericho said gently, pulling
her into him. "Don’t worry about Carvalho, or his wife, or the
children. We weren’t the first guests of theirs. Probably not the
last either."

Chloe turned her face into
his shoulder and sobbed. "I feel
so
guilty."

"Hey." Jericho pulled her up. "If anyone
should feel guilty, it's me. I should have been more careful, kept
a better eye out. I was smarter than to stay the night in
Barbacena. There was no way I was getting out of Brazil without
firing my weapon."

"That’s why I feel guilty. You wouldn’t have
stayed the night if not for me." Chloe covered her face with her
hands.

Jericho shushed her as she began to cry
again. "Come on, stop that." He rubbed her back, attempting to
soothe her. "Why don’t you have a look around and 'enjoy the
scenery' before it gets dark." He checked his watch. "I have to
clean the weapons."

Chloe nodded hesitantly at first, sniffing
and wiping her face as she stood. "Okay."

"Don’t go out of my sight."

"I won't," she called over her shoulder,
heading back to the water's edge at the pool.

Chloe didn’t know how long she sat on the
bank. She tried to erase the frightened images of Mrs. Carvalho and
the boys.

Somehow, the jungle wasn’t as pretty or
serene to her anymore now that those self-recriminations had
surfaced.

Chloe jumped at a little splash, but almost
as suddenly, her fear drained as she saw the tiny black and yellow
spotted frog that had hopped from the pool onto a nearby rock in
the shadow of giant leaves.

Chloe
oohed
as she rose to her knees and
gained her feet, slowly. She got closer, but the little frog just
stared at her, very still. The frog's coloring was so unusual. She
had heard there were hundreds of species in the Amazon you could
not otherwise see.

Chloe stretched to reach out, but was
suddenly caught around the waist and hauled backward into a hard
body.

"Don’t touch that," Jericho said.

Chloe gasped with a little squeak. "Why?"
she asked, turning into him.

Jericho frowned down at her. "That's a
poison dart frog," he said incredulously.

Chloe cringed, folding into Jericho's
embrace as she turned more fully, his arm lingering around her
waist. Their bodies were close, touching just a hint.

She gave him a guilty half-smile. "Oh," she
breathed.

Chloe melted when Jericho
dropped his gaze to her mouth, his expression turbulent. A moment
passed between them, and Chloe was certain he would kiss her. She
was instantly certain she
wanted
him to.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he shuddered and stepped away,
leaving her very aware of just how much she regretted the last man
she had kissed.

Chapter Nine

1700 hours, Sunday

Hidden in the Cerrado

Jericho dropped himself at the base of the
twin kauri tree again and patted the spot of forest floor beside
him. "Time to rest."

Chloe turned from the little pool, where he
had unknowingly left her contemplating what it would be like to
kiss him. Her brow pinched as her stare fell on Jericho. She looked
him up and down, pausing.

The last time she had been kissed was over
Fourth of July weekend at a country club where she and her ex had
celebrated their wedding shower. It had been a short peck, over all
too quickly. Now thinking back, the kiss had also been slightly
cold. She had thought so then, too, she supposed, but had chosen to
ignore the tiny pang of hurt.

He had kissed her goodbye
at his car. She remembered following him there as he left early,
supposedly for a forgotten meeting with a client. After he left her
at the curb, she'd watched him drive away and wondered why he
hadn't wanted to kiss her more deeply.
He
is
my
groom, after all. Shouldn’t he be in love with me?
she'd thought.

Chloe snorted now.

She wished her ex's lips had never touched
hers. If she had the power, she would erase the entire
relationship.

And so, there
was
something she wanted
to do before she died, in case she met her end tomorrow or even
during the night.

Chloe hesitated, chewing at her bottom lip
nervously. She wasn't even remotely sure how to approach a man she
intended to kiss without being invited to do so. She had always let
the man lead.

She took a deep, steadying breath and
crossed over to the tree, feeling brave as she approached, but grew
timid as she sat down.

"Is everything all right?" Jericho
asked.

Chloe sighed, shutting her eyes briefly.

Oh, hell, what did she have to lose
anyway?

Chloe gathered her nerve.

It wasn't as if rejection would be anything
new to her.

Chloe reached out quickly, cupped Jericho's
cheek with her palm, and before he could stop her or protest, she
tilted her head and claimed his lips in a gentle kiss.

A hot spasm of desire struck her harder than
she'd anticipated.

Chloe pulled back to view his surprise,
expecting to find astonishment, and she did.

All the blood in her body seemed to rush to
her head in an instant as she waited for what seemed like forever
for him to respond.

He blinked and shook his head, confused.
"What was that for?" he murmured dazedly.

Chloe bit her bottom lip, dropping her stare
back to his mouth. "If I die, I don’t want that asshole to be the
last man I kissed," she said in a whisper, offering a smile and a
nervous little shrug. She started to turn away, but he caught her
by the arm.