Wolf (20 page)

Sylvie was severely put out about their trip down to the stream to bathe. Hawk had followed them and she’d been hopeful that she was going to experience the fantasy she’d had ever since she’d done a three way with Beau and Cavanaugh. Despite the promise in Mac’s eyes, though, they merely bathed.

Her disappointment waned as they headed back to camp and her weariness began to weigh on her again. She’d been too shot up with adrenaline at their return to feel it until she’d bathed the tension away along with the dirt from her travels.

Beau and Cavanaugh had returned from the hunt by the time they got back from the river and had already set the meat to cook on spits, but she was almost too tired to eat or to care whether she did or not. Giving up the attempt to try to appear alert, she finally lay down on the pallet and closed her eyes, promising herself she was just going to rest her eyes.

“What happened?” Beau asked as soon as he was certain Sylvie had given up the fight and dozed off.

Mac had been studying her himself but at that, he turned to look at Beau with an expression of disgust.

“You know Carl Yancy?” Hawk muttered.

Beau’s black brows drew together over the bridge of his nose. “Total asshole.”

“Well, he’s a bigger, meaner, more dangerous asshole. Same goes for the rest of his pack.”

Beau glanced at Mac questioningly. His expression was taut.

“I had a bad feeling as soon as that son-of-a-bitch and his pack showed up. We should’ve left then. Near as I can tell, him and his pack have been rampaging all over the fucking place, terrorizing the locals, taking anything that tickles their fancy, and killing anybody that looks at them the wrong way. I should’ve guessed as much as soon as he showed up trying to sling his weight around, but I didn’t.”

Hawk shrugged. “I didn’t know he was that damned stupid, myself. Son-of-a-bitch challenged Mac right off. He was spouting all kinds of shit about being top dog.

Next thing we know, the fucking marines are crawling all over the place. We had to fight our way out of there.”

“And we didn’t dare head for a rendezvous with you and Sylvie until we were sure we’d lost them,” Cavanaugh added.

Beau stared at them in disbelief for several moments. “Jesus fucking Christ! Has he lost his fucking mind?”

Mac shook his head. “I don’t know—maybe. And maybe he’s just a stupid son-of-a-bitch that’s decided he’s a god now. I have to tell you
most
of them made me damned uneasy. They were talking shit about revenge and storming Guantanamo even before Yancy and his bunch showed up. I think the bug’s got them all half-crazy if you want the truth of it. That’s why we stayed. We were trying to talk some sense into them.

I thought we were doing pretty well, too, until Yancy showed. After that … I’m damned
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if I know.

“We’ve got another priority, though. I wasn’t keen on that wreck of a cabin for Sylvie and the pups any of the time. She needs a doctor, and we sure as hell can’t hang around here now if the others are going to make war on the U.S.

“About the only good thing I see coming out of this fucking mess is that everybody scattered south, heading deeper into the forests. The hunt’s going to be focused in that direction and that means we have an opening to get Sylvie out of here before she’s too loaded down to be moved.

“It’s going to be dicey, though. One slip up and they’ll know we’re headed home and we’re liable to have a reception party when we get there.”

Beau frowned. “We got hundreds of miles of jungle an’ everythin’ else you can think of between here an’ there. Sylvie ain’t gonna be able to handle it,
mon ami
! I can tell you that, straight up. I doan know much about pregnant women, so maybe I’m wrong, but it didn’t seem to me she got so wore out so quick before or even
as
wore out.”

Hawk glanced at Sylvie frowningly. “It’s too soon for that to be a problem, don’t you think?”

“Like I said,” Beau repeated tightly. “Maybe, maybe not, but somethin’s up with her. We’ve been humping it hard, but I been carryin’ her a good bit.”

“Shit!” Cavanaugh put in. “My little sister—it’s like she had sleepin’ sickness or somethin’! Soon as she got knocked up it was like an energy drain. Plus she was pukin’

every time we turned around or dashing to the bathroom to piss every five minutes. And she only had
one
in the oven. How many you think Sylvie’s got?”

Hawk frowned. “At least two,” he said a little absently. “You think more makes that much difference?”

“Damned if I know,” Mac said shortly. “Never been around a pregnant woman before in my life—not close enough to notice anything.”

Hawk noticed Beau and Cavanaugh were glaring at him when he finally dragged his gaze from Sylvie. “What?” he growled.

“Dick!” Cavanaugh muttered. “Damned sure of yourself, ain’t you? Well, I’m thinkin’ she’s got at least three in the oven if you’re so damned sure you’ve got one,

‘cause I know damned well I nailed one!”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Beau drawled. “Unless there’s four, you missed your shot,
mon ami
.”

Cavanaugh glared at him.

“Knock it off!” Mac growled. “We’ll worry about that later. Right now we’ve got to worry about getting her to a doctor. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m sure as hell not keen on the idea of helping her whelp
one
pup.”

Hawk, Cavanaugh, and Beau all looked horrified. “Jesus Christ!” Beau exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought about that!”

“Ok—so right now I say we just focus on trying to take as much of the load off of her as we can and keep hauling ass,” Mac said decisively. “We’ve got a little breathing room, as far as we know, but not so much I feel like dragging my feet. I want a wider hole between us and them as fast as we can make one. We’ll just carry her like we did before if she flakes out on us. When I think we’ve got a safe enough margin, we’ll find some place to let her rest up and see what we can come up with.

“We need transport. Even if we carried her the entire way, I don’t think it’s good
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for her in her condition—wouldn’t be if she wasn’t pregnant. She’s strong, but I don’t want to push it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Beau offered.

“The borders are going to be a problem,” Hawk pointed out. “None of us have papers.”

“And unavoidable,” Mac countered. “We’ll just have to deal with it as we come to it.”

“Maybe we should make for the coast? See if we can requisition a boat?”

“Not right now. It’s got merit. We could get her home a lot faster without nearly as much stress—but that’s only if we could slip under the radar. Right now isn’t a good time to try it.”

“They’re in hot pursuit of the others right now,” Cavanaugh argued. “If they catch up to them and do a head count ….”

“I said they were crazy,” Mac retorted, “not stupid. I doubt that the military’s going to get a chance to do a head count any time soon. Again, you have a good point, but they’re going to be expecting the possibility that somebody slipped through and headed north instead of south. We need to give it a few weeks, anyway, to give them time to get confident.

“Once we get Sylvie settled somewhere, we can use the time to do some recon.”

He stopped, frowning thoughtfully. “Pirates would be the best bet. The first thing they do is strip the boats and re-outfit them. They won’t run screaming to the police or militia about having a boat stolen and it would already be set up to keep authorities from noticing it’s stolen. The tricky part will be finding a pirating operation.”

Hawk snorted. “You don’t think it’s going to be tricky stealing a boat from a bunch of pirates?”

Mac grinned at him
ishly. “Not if we take out the pirates when we take the boat. I don’t know about you, but I’d just as soon not have to watch my back for a bunch of pissed off pirates. We’ve got enough to worry about … and I’m not taking any chances with Sylvie that we don’t have to.”

* * * *

Sylvie was ready to retire her t-shirt and sweat pants the minute she saw the blouse, skirt, and sandals Mac had ‘liberated’ for her. Not that they weren’t nearly as worn looking as what she had on, but they were at least
different
! “Not yet. You’ll need them when we get to a town.”

Sylvie gaped at him. “But … we’ve already by-passed two!”

“And we’re going to by-pass a few more,” Mac responded grimly. “We can’t afford to be seen in our military fatigues and we also can’t afford to steal much in one place. Either one carries the potential of sending up red flags!”

Dismay filled her, but she knew he was right. Everybody was dirt poor. They were going to miss what had been taken—and be pissed off about it. Stealing enough for all five of them in one place was just asking for trouble. Ditto trying to divide it by two.

That would not only send up red flags, it would give the hunters a direction.

He at least let her have the sandals. Not that she needed them nearly as badly as she had. The soles of her feet had gotten so tough they were like leather already.

Beyond that, Mac, Hawk, Beau, or Cavanaugh carried her at least half the day every day.

She couldn’t understand why she was still more exhausted than they were. She
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should’ve toughened up like her feet had after all the hiking they’d done. They hadn’t spent much more than a couple of weeks at the cabin. That shouldn’t have been enough time to allow her to get completely out of shape, especially considering all of the really hard work she’d done while they were there, she thought wryly.

And that was another thing she didn’t understand! She knew she must look like hell and smell like a buffalo at least half the time, but they acted like she wasn’t even carrying the only available pussy, damn it! Granted, she was too tired most of the time to have any real interest in sex, but she would’ve at least liked to have the reassurance that they were suffering for the lack.

Because
she
was! As exhausted as she was most of the time, she couldn’t be around them and
not
want it!

She supposed they were worn out, too, and worried. The speed they were traveling was enough of a clue that they were still deeply concerned that they might have hunters on their trail.

There hadn’t really been a time when that wasn’t a worry, though, and it hadn’t stopped them from thoroughly plowing her damned rows!

She was alternately pissed off about it and worried. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about already! But it was still hard to dismiss personal concerns when they were a lot more valid to her current situation than the hunters she’d never even seen since they’d escaped Cuba. She couldn’t prevent dark thoughts from creeping into her mind that they were tired of her and had completely lost interest in her sexually.

It wouldn’t have been quiet so bad if she hadn’t felt like they had every reason to lose interest. Thankfully, she didn’t have a mirror to see just how bad she looked, but she could still imagine it without any trouble. She probably looked like an old hag!

Maybe it was for the best, she told herself. They were awfully anxious to take her home all of a sudden. To her mind that could only mean that they were desperate to dump her, but just too good-natured and responsible to simply abandon her to her own devises. It would probably be easier on her in the long run if she adjusted to the idea before she had to face it.

She didn’t see any damned sense in it, though! She could get used to it
after
it happened, when she had to! She was available. They had to be getting horny. Why not scratch each other’s itch? It seemed perfectly reasonable to her.

She finally gave up on the idea, though. If she hadn’t managed to convince herself she looked like hell, she might’ve had the courage to try to seduce them. Once she’d planted the fear of rejection in her mind, though, that was out of the question.

She couldn’t help but sulk about it. However, she was so anxious to protect what was left of her pride by pretending she hadn’t noticed they weren’t interested in screwing her and that it hadn’t even crossed her mind that they were ignoring her that she worked hard to keep them from realizing she was beginning to hate their damned guts for holding out on her. She
wanted
to air her grievances. She wanted to tell them in no uncertain terms that she didn’t have trouble getting dick when she wanted it and they not only weren’t swinging the only dicks around but it hadn’t even been that great.

It wasn’t true, unfortunately, but she wouldn’t have had any qualms about lying about it except that she suspected they’d know she was lying and it wouldn’t take them long to figure out why.

After dragging them all over hell’s creation for weeks, Mac finally found a town
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that appealed to him. Sylvie was so worn out by that time, though, that she didn’t care what it was like. The idea of spending a little time in a place even remotely resembling civilization made her feel like weeping with joy.

They had to clean up and don their ‘disguises’ before they even gave it a try, which meant another bath in another bug and animal infested river. They used the clothes they’d been wearing to dry off—
very
sanitary!

Sylvie managed to get up some enthusiasm, though, when Mac finally coughed up the damned clothes he’d been promising to give her. She wasn’t particularly happy with the fit. The peasant style blouse looked pretty good, she thought. It really seemed to emphasize her breasts, but the damned gathered skirt
also
emphasized her belly, made it look poochy. She supposed, dimly, that it must be getting close to her time of the month and that explained the fact that it was swollen. She didn’t remember ballooning quite that badly as a general rule, but then she
was
hypersensitive about her appearance.

Great! Well, she could put getting a piece of dick out of her mind for a while, damn it! On the good side, she was going to be in a town where she had some chance of finding feminine products—no money—but it ought to be available.

The guys were sure going to be thrilled when she told them they were going to have to steal her some pads!

“Pay attention, Sylvie!” Mac said, breaking into her thoughts.

She blinked at him, tempted to inform him she would’ve if she’d thought he was actually talking to her. It had sounded more like general orders to her, though.

“You and Cavanaugh are married. You got married about a year ago and you’re just getting around to your honeymoon.”

Sylvie stared at him. She had a
lot
of problems with the cover story. First and foremost was the fact that she doubted anybody was going to believe Cavanaugh was her husband. He was twenty-four and he looked twenty-four and she was thirty-four and she probably looked about sixty after spending a month in the South American jungle!

Before, she might have passed for somewhere around thirty, give or take, but she didn’t have to see a mirror to know that she didn’t now.

Secondly, no one in their right mind would plan a dream honeymoon of trekking through South America!

Third and not by any means least, neither one of them were dressed like affluent Americans even if they did have the accent.

She cleared her throat and decided to assert herself. “Uh … this outfit. Don’t get me wrong! I appreciate it and I know you went to a lot of trouble to get it, but it doesn’t look like something an American would wear.”

“You decided to go native.”

She bit her lip. “But, if I’d decided to do that I would’ve bought something new.”

“She’s got a point,” Cavanaugh seconded her.

“So you traded a native for the outfit because you thought it was pretty,” Mac said through gritted teeth.

“Ok,” Sylvie said meekly. She really, really hated to mention point number one, mostly because she wasn’t about to tell them how old she was, but also because she was afraid it might hurt Cavanaugh’s feeling. “Uh … Cavanaugh looks really young …

because he is, you know. Don’t you think it would seem more believable if I went with Beau? He’s older.”

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Cavanaugh and Beau both looked indignant. “We’re the same damned age!”

“And Beau’s accent is so thick it’ll make him stand out—make people remember him. Cavanaugh’s average. Nobody will remember him.”

Sylvie gaped at Mac. “Well! That’s a terrible thing to say! He is
not
average!

He’s very cute!” She smiled at Cavanaugh, who didn’t look particularly happy about being told he was ‘cute’, and discovered Beau was glaring at her. “But, of course, all of you are so I’m not sure anyone of you would be any less memorable than another.”

“You’re going with Cavanaugh. Beau can’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t speak Spanish?” Sylvie asked, stunned.

Beau narrowed his eyes at her. “No. Because I am French,
chère
.”

“Oh. Well … never mind.” She looked at Hawk a little helplessly.

“Why don’t I pose as her husband?”

“Because you’re going to be with me,” Mac said pointedly. “This isn’t a democracy! Beau is going … I mean Cavanaugh is going to pose as her husband and they’re going to get a room for a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t seem to cause a stir, then we’ll give it a day, maybe two, and we’ll wander into town and bump into them.

Cavanaugh will meet us here tonight and let us know if it seems safe to play it that way.”

“Maybe we should just say we’re lovers?” Sylvie suggested. “I don’t have a ring.”

“Not a good idea, ring or not,” Mac said tightly. “You might think these people have an antiquated notion of propriety—they do—and they don’t think Americans have any morals, but I don’t think it’ll cause nearly as much of a stir sharing a room with your husband as it would if you two went around telling everybody you weren’t married.”

“I don’t really like Sylvie going in first,” Hawk said.

“Nobody likes Sylvie going in first,” Mac said with determined patience. “
I
don’t like it. But the objective, if you’ll recall, is to get Sylvie settled—safely—so that we can do some recon work.”

“What kind of recon work?” Sylvie asked uneasily.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to get across the border with you,”

Cavanaugh said helpfully.

Mac glared at him. “Well, it took a lot for her to pry that out of you!” he growled.

Cavanaugh reddened. “Sorry, boss.”

“Why shouldn’t he tell me?” Sylvie asked a little indignantly. “It isn’t like I wouldn’t have to be told.”

Mac shook his head at her. “Just get going.”

Sylvie frowned. “We’re just going to stroll into town, hand and hand, with nothing except what we’re wearing? Don’t you think that’ll look a little suspicious?”

Mac narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re going to
each
be carrying one bag, which is why you’re going to say you’re hiking, damn it! They already think Americans are weird and crazy. They won’t think anything is strange about it.” Obviously deciding to ignore her, he fixed Cavanaugh with a hard look. “You have the money I gave you?”

Cavanaugh checked his pockets and finally dragged it out.

“Don’t be waving it around. The fact that you’re American tourists is liable to make you a target as it is.”

Cavanaugh glared at him. “Jesus, Mac! If you think I’m that damned incompetent I don’t know why the hell you gave me the assignment!”

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“You got your damned period, or what?” Mac snarled. “I’m just saying, watch your back, damn it! If I didn’t trust you I wouldn’t let you take Sylvie ten feet!”

Cavanaugh looked mollified, but Sylvie wasn’t certain which of their comments set her back up most. She decided Mac’s had. “Exactly what do you mean by that snide comment?” she demanded indignantly.

Mac stared at her blankly for a moment. Abruptly, he grabbed her, snatched her close and kissed her soundly on the mouth. “I’m not going to fight with you, Sylvie!” he growled. “I know you want to fight. You’ve been spoiling for a fight. But I’m not going to give it to you. Now, behave yourself and go on with Cavanaugh.”

He sent Cavanaugh a significant look. Cavanaugh looked baffled for a moment, but he grabbed Sylvie’s hand and began tugging her toward the road that led into the town.

Sylvie threw Mac an uneasy look as Cavanaugh dragged her away, wondering what he’d meant by kissing her like that. Had he been trying to say goodbye? Was this all a ruse just to get rid of her with the least amount of discomfort?

“Why did he kiss me like that?” she demanded when they’d finally reached the road.

“To shut you up, I’m guessing,” Cavanaugh muttered under his breath.

“I don’t know why you’re taking his side! He insulted you.”

He sent her a look.

Sylvie blinked at him while she tried to tabulate the nuances of that look. “I didn’t mean to insult you, though.”

He grunted.

“What does that mean?”