Running Wild (6 page)

He didn’t try to break the silence. He fully intended, in fact, not to say a word until Mags did. He sure as hell didn’t foresee that being a hardship—he was
king
when it came to keeping his own counsel.

His brothers had long ago elected him the Kavanagh Construction go-to guy when it came to dealing with difficult clients, suppliers or hired help. He could be counted on to sit quietly and simply listen to a complaint or an excuse until he had its measure. Then he’d either fix it if Kavanagh’s was at fault, which on occasion turned out to be the case, or he’d set the other party straight if he disagreed with the client/vendor/employee’s assessment of the problem. And if a discussion didn’t supply the solution when he knew they were in the right, he was known for simply looking silently at the other person until they started squirming or blurting out all manner of things to fill the silence.

He drove without saying a word for an additional forty-five minutes.

Something about Mags, however, had a way of turning all his usual moves upside down. Apparently she didn’t mind silence any more than he did. And where yesterday he could have outwaited her indefinitely, this morning he found it amazingly difficult.

“I’m playing with the idea of pulling off the road and letting Joaquin and company pass us,” he eventually heard himself say out of the blue. “Hell, we could go back to Senora Guerrero’s and get an actual night’s sleep, then find an alternate route in the morning. Because I sure wouldn’t object to being the trailer for a change instead of the trailed.”

“
I
wouldn’t mind going back to sleep,” she murmured—apparently to the ceiling headliner, which had curled away in a few places to hang in ragged strips. God knew she’d barely looked at him directly since her blowup. “But there are risks to consider.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, pleased she’d noticed when she’d spent most of the ride staring down at her fingers in her lap. “It’s surprisingly flat in this area and there aren’t a lot of places to hide a car.”

“Sure, that’s one difficulty.” Turning her head without lifting it from the headrest, she looked past his nose and out the side window. “Then there’s the possibility that they might wait to fix the car. Because who the hell knows what runs through Joaquin’s head? He might have thought of the coming-back thing and decided to stay put.”

“Are you kidding me? He’s too stupid to think of something that brilliant.”

This time she did look at him...as if he should be committed.

He snorted. “Fine, say what you want about me.” And after the way he’d dazzled her with his charm that would likely be an earful. “But trust me on this—it’d only be his unwillingness to trade down to one of the villagers’ cars,
not
any masterminding skills on his part that would keep him there.” He blew out a disgusted breath. “Which still leaves us in front of him.”

“I have to admit, I like the idea of being behind better. It seems a lot easier to keep an eye on what’s ahead of us than constantly having to look over our shoulders.” She straightened suddenly. Looked at him without the distance that had veiled those blue eyes since he’d messed things up. “But if we do have to stay ahead of him,” she said slowly, “we need to maintain our lead. Or, better yet, shake him entirely.”

“I’m all for that. You have an idea how to accomplish it?”

She gave him a decisive nod. “It’s that finding-an-alternate-route thing you brought up. We’ve pretty much been following the Pan-American.”

“It’s the best highway in South America.”

“Yeah, by far. But it’s not the only one.” She gave him a level look. “I’d bet my professional makeup kit, though, that it’s the only one Joaquin has ever considered.”

He felt a slow smile spread across his face and had to fight the urge to hook a hand around the back of her neck and plant a big kiss on her in sheer appreciation. Instead, he settled on saying, “You are brilliant!”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed coolly and pulled the road map out of the glove box. She opened it in her lap.

He knew damn well she couldn’t see a thing. But without missing a beat—or feeling the need to look up, apparently—she said, “Does that overhead light work?”

“You didn’t test all the car’s features before leaving the rental agency?”

She gave him a
get-real
grunt and he shook his head. She was clearly an in-the-moment woman and not big on planning, which as a carpenter, electrician and, hell, just an all-around builder, he didn’t understand at all. It irritated him. No, who was he kidding, it bugged the hell out of him. But that was his problem and, shaking off his exasperation, he tried the switch on the light above the rearview mirror. Reasonably bright illumination came on.

“Eureka,” she said, raising the map and turning it toward the light. She pored over it quietly for a few moments, then set the still-open map in her lap and turned to him.

“In what looks like fifteen or so miles after we rejoin the Pan-Am, the road to San Vito
forks
off to the east. The red line marking the roads is still fairly strong for that highway, but when we get to Cordoba and hang a right to head south again it’s not nearly as bold on the map. Which means it’s—” She shook her head. “Okay, I have no clue what condition we’ll find it in. But I bet it’ll be less than optimal. We might have to ask around about gas stations and such before we start down it.” She yawned hugely.

“But that’s for tomorrow,” he said, reaching out and plucking the map from her hands and deftly folding it. “We’re finally getting back into the type of terrain I’ve mostly seen today. So whataya say we find a place where we can get the hell off this road and grab some sleep?”

“Finally,” she muttered. “Something we can agree on.”

CHAPTER SIX

M
AGS
HADN
’
T
BEEN
camping since she was a kid. Well, strictly speaking she’d
made
camps with friends but had never actually gone camping with tents and sleeping bags and stuff. Mostly she’d run wild with the kids of the families her folks ministered to. And although the gritty urban streets of Tacna, where they’d lived until she was six or seven years old, were about as far from the wilderness as things got, during the years that she and her parents had lived in the village of Onoato, the lush northern Amazon had been her playground. She and the village children had spent long carefree hours exploring and playacting. And building camps.

She sneaked a peek at Finn while he set up their camp with economical proficiency. As he moved in and out of the shadows cast by a small battery-powered lantern, she watched his features change back and forth between the spare, angular beauty and hatchet-carved cheekbones of an old-time saint to a hollow-eyed, shadow-misted visage that she entertained herself by assigning more demonic labels to.

She tried to picture him as part of those old simplistic childhood games, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She could, however, easily see him swinging on vines through the rain forest the way the older boys had done, and had a sneaking suspicion that if he had been part of her childhood gang, he’d have thought he was the boss of them.

She muttered,
“As if”
under her breath.

“You say something there, Goldilocks?”

She started. Then, slapping back the bump of guilt over...darned if she knew what, she said, “Nooooo?”

As if it were a
question
, for pity’s sake. Holy crappacino. She was so tired she was rummy.

Finn strode up to her and, as if he’d read her thoughts, waved a hand at the small tent he’d set up. “It might be close quarters, but it’s out of the elements.” He gave her a wry smile, no doubt thinking the same thing she did: that it was dry and still amazingly warm given it was the middle of the night. He shrugged. “Such as they are.”

Looking at the minuscule tent, she felt a moment’s qualm about those close quarters. But,
lord
, she’d give a bundle to lie down. So in the spirit of getting some rest, she sloughed off her misgivings.

“I thought about setting up just the fly instead of the whole tent,” Finn said. “It’d be cooler and we’d definitely have more ventilation. But I don’t know what kind of critters are around here so I decided to err on the side of keeping them the hell out.” The night was alive with the sound of small rustling, chirping things. The crickets had gone dead silent when she and Finn first climbed out of the car, but it hadn’t taken long for them to grow accustomed to the humans in their midst and they were now back to their full nightly chorale.

“That works for me.” She headed for the shelter, but then stopped halfway there. “But first I’ve gotta pee.”

He offered her the lantern. “Take this and wait here a sec. I’ll grab you some TP from my pack.” He unzipped the entry flap and tossed it back. The tent’s opening was larger than she expected and he bent in half but entered it easily enough.

He was back in seconds and tossed her a plastic bag with a flattened roll of toilet paper inside. “You want me to go with you?”

She was half-tempted, but if she could handle wildlife when she was a little girl, she could darn well handle it now. “No, I’m good. I’ll just be a minute.”

She was back not a whole lot longer than she’d predicted and found him still standing next to the tent.

“Let me take that.” He reached for the battery-operated lantern. “I put your purse thing in the vestibule.” He indicated the fly that stretched out beyond the boundaries of the tent, then made an after-you gesture. “Pick whichever side you’re most comfortable on. I only have the one mat and sleeping bag, but it’s so warm I doubt we’ll need to cover up so you can sleep on whichever you think will work best. There’s a door and vestibule on both sides so we won’t have to crawl over each other.”

“
Fan
cy.” She bent to peer inside and eased out a small breath of relief when she saw it looked reasonably roomy. She let herself in the way she’d seen him do. Then, turning, she saw he’d bent over to peer in at her.

“Which side appeals to you?” he asked.

“I like sleeping on the left.” She was also more drawn to the puffy sleeping bag than to the not particularly comfortable-looking thin mat.

“Left, it is,” he said. “If you want to do up the zipper on the door I’ll go around and let myself in on the other side.”

She did so and looked around as she unhooked her bra and removed it through the sleeve of her top. This wouldn’t be so bad. It wasn’t nearly as cramped as she’d expected.

Which made her wonder what kind of conditions her folks had to contend with on Munoz’s coca farm. They were accustomed to living rough, but what if the cartel goons had just tossed them in a closet or set them to working the fields for twelve hours a day? They were in their sixties, for pity’s sake, and likely weren’t as strong as they once were.

The
zzzip
of the zipper unfastening on the other side of the tent interrupted her thoughts and she turned to watch Finn climb inside. He was around the six-foot mark and his shoulders were wide. And suddenly what she’d thought was a generous hunk of space shrank.

She eased off her sandals and set them aside, then flopped down atop the sleeping bag. “Good night,” she murmured and turned away from him onto her side. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep but she had an awful feeling the much-needed slumber might be elusive. Things rustled as he did whatever he did to get ready for bed and a hint of his scent wafted in her direction.

As she breathed in the bouquet of some no-nonsense guy-type soap, laundry detergent and the faint underlying aroma of man, she was surprised to find it curiously comforting. And perhaps that was why, between one breath and the next, she did exactly what she feared she’d not be able to do.

She tumbled headfirst into the deep, dark abyss of oblivion.

* * *

F
INN
AWOKE
FROM
a great dream of having a woman sprawled over him to discover that a woman was, in fact, half-sprawled over him.

For a second, he didn’t know where the hell he was. Cracking an eye open, he tipped his chin to look. Magdalene was in his arms and memories of yesterday started filtering back into his brain. Unless those were part of an elaborate dream as well.

She slept on her side, partially plastered against him. Her head rested on his chest as if he were her personal pillow, her breasts nestled against a section of his rib cage and one shapely arm draped across him diagonally. Her right leg was slung across his thighs and bent at the knee, her kneecap dangerously close to brushing his morning wood.

But if she’d been drawn to him in her sleep, clearly he’d been equally magnetized. Hard to say otherwise, considering his own arm wrapped around her in return. More damning, that hand cupped the lower curve of her breast. He gazed at it blurrily through slitted eyes.

Okay, this didn’t appear to be a dream. A soft guffaw escaped him. No shit, Sherlock. If he were dreaming she’d be buck-naked and crawling all over him, performing epic pornographic acts.

He shifted the hand cupping her breast and stroked his thumb down the warm curve to her nipple. The weight in his palm jiggled slightly and her nipple hardened beneath the barely there layer of the thin T-shirt separating their bare skin.

Nope. Definitely not a dream.

Yet still he floated in a half world, caught between sleep and full consciousness as he lazily gave the nipple caught between his thumb and the side of his index finger a gentle tug. And oh, yeah. She liked that. Watching with sleepy satisfaction, he repeated the process, loving the drowsy, appreciative sounds she made in her sleep and the way she rocked her hips with restive sexuality against the side of his.

Then she suddenly went still—and he was abruptly wide-awake with the knowledge that she likely was as well.

Not to mention the realization that he’d been caught feeling her up with all the finesse of a fourteen-year-old achieving second base for the very first time. His hand on her breast went slack and he slid it surreptitiously to her lower rib cage. Then had to swallow a snort.

Because, really?
Like if you’re
stealthy
enough she won’t notice you’ve been getting all handsy with her tit?

Without raising her head from his chest, she slowly tilted it back to look up at him. Her sleepy blue eyes were still heavy lidded. “Well, this is awkward,” she murmured. But, yawning, she didn’t look the least bit discomfited as she pushed back to sit on the rumpled sleeping bag next to his mat. “Sorry about that. Nancy always said I was a bed hog.” She yawned again, long and luxuriously, stretching with feline voluptuousness.

He had to drag his gaze away and clear his throat. “Yeah, and I apologize for copping a feel. My only defense is I was mostly asleep.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, that and I’m a man.”

She made a rude sound. “And therefore can’t resist latching on to any boob within touching range?”

He winced, because put like that, it sounded even lamer than he’d thought. Still, he nodded gamely, pushed up onto his elbow and raked his hair back with the fingers of his free hand. “Something like that. I plead the guy gene.” He reached for the Levi’s he’d kicked off after she’d fallen asleep last night and pulled them on, lifting his hips to tug them up over his butt. Lowering the latter back onto the mat, he zipped up.

Then he rolled to his feet and extended a hand down to assist her up. He ignored the jolt that shot through his system when she slapped her palm in his.

“Look,” he said as he hauled her to her feet, “what’s done is done, so there’s not a helluva lot I can do about it now. But I can heat up some water so we can have a cup of coffee and wash up.” Hey, he had sisters. He knew the store chicks put in things like hot water and makeup and hair doodads. Plus, who didn’t appreciate a cup of coffee after a night camping out?

As if to prove his point, Mags’s face lit up. “That would be so great.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “But don’t think I don’t know when I’m being managed.”

Busted. But he merely shrugged once again. “Just using knowledge gained from my sisters. Especially Hannah. She likes camping, but the girl goes nowhere without her makeup and the promise of water that someone else heats.”

“I think I’d like her.”

“I think she’d
worship
you. I thought she hauled a lot of that stuff around, but your makeup kit leaves hers in the dust. If she ever saw it I’m pretty sure she’d bow before you and say ‘I’m not worthy.’” He gave her a crooked smile and retrieved his backpacking stove from his pack, along with the set of nesting pots. After pouring water from the water bottle into the largest container, he connected a bottle of white gas to the single burner and ignited it with his Bic. He balanced the pan atop the burner, made sure everything was steady, then adjusted the heat.

“That’ll take a minute or two,” he said and turned to see her fidgeting. Refraining from saying any of the smart-ass remarks that popped to mind, he tossed her the plastic bag containing the toilet paper.

She snatched it out of the air and trotted off for the jungle-type woods, sending a flock of birds winging toward the trees. He counted several other types of birds while she was gone, some colorful, others surprisingly dull for South America. All of them twittered, chirped or cried raucously overhead as they flew across the clearing or hopped from branch to branch along the forest line.

One landed not far from him and pecked up a line of army ants that Finn was happy to see appeared to be a one-off thing. He’d seen a Discovery Channel show once that had shown hundreds of those ants boiling over a carcass and picking it clean. The ten or so the bird had just gobbled up were as many as he cared to see up close.

It occurred to him while Mags was in the woods that he needed to apologize to her about a couple of the careless things he’d said. Luckily, before he could make himself all tense over the prospect, the water came to a boil and he got out the coffee fixings. Magdalene demonstrated impeccable timing when she strolled back into camp just as he finished making them each a cup. He handed her his one and only mug, keeping the cardboard cup for himself.

She took a sip and moaned softly. “Oh, my Lord, that’s good.” She looked around. “Where did you dispose of the grounds?”

“This is instant, there are no grounds.”

She blinked at him. “No way this is instant coffee.”

“Hey, I’m from Seattle, darlin’, and you gotta know what that means. We’re famous for our excellent coffee, both real
and
instant.”

She grinned at him over the rim of her mug, then suddenly snapped her fingers. “Hang on,” she said and crossed to the tent to pull her big purse out of the vestibule. Squatting in front of it, she carefully set her coffee cup on the ground, then pawed through her bag. A moment later she made a sound of discovery.

“Something to go with the coffee. Here, catch.” She tossed him an energy bar. “It’s no B. T. McElrath Salty Dog bar, but at least it has a little chocolate on it.” Lowering her butt to sit cross-legged on the ground, she opened her own bar, then picked up her mug again.