‘There are no paved roads going west,’ Diego explained. ‘Most people who want to visit the towns along the border with Colombia and Peru travel by boat on the Rio Negro.’
‘Why didn’t we take a boat instead of driving?’
‘The river narrows as it flows into Torrente, making it easy for the drug lords to control the area. There’s an airstrip at the edge of the town which they also control. Travelling by Jeep means I can go where I like and, more importantly, I can leave whenever I want to.’
Clare’s heart plummeted at the news that criminals controlled the air and river routes into and out of Torrente. Once she had paid the ransom money she hoped to get Becky to safety as quickly as possible. She wondered if she should tell the prospector the real reason she was going to the town and maybe he would agree to bring her and Becky back to Manaus. But, although Sister Ann had said he was trustworthy, Clare was afraid to trust anyone apart from the nuns who had helped her.
She thought of her father back in London. Rory Marchant would be desperately waiting for news of Becky but trying to pretend to his wife that there was nothing wrong. Tammi Marchant was only in her early fifties, but a year ago she had suffered a stroke that had left her partially paralysed. It broke Clare’s heart to see her once vibrant and still beautiful mother now so fragile. Her father had insisted on caring full-time for his wife and had handed the running of A-Star PR over to Clare.
It had been a daunting task to take charge of the agency, but Clare had risen to the challenge. She’d enjoyed developing her PR skills and had discovered a natural talent for devising advertising campaigns. At least being busy meant she’d had no time to brood over her break-up with Mark. Her mother’s illness and her father’s devoted care of his wife had shown her that she wanted a marriage as strong as her parents’ relationship, and she was prepared to hold out until she met a man she could love and trust with all her heart.
The one positive thing was that recently she had felt a deepening bond with her father as they’d shared looking after Tammi and discussed business together. For the first time in her life she sensed that her father was as proud of her as he was of her sister. Of course she was not in the same league as Becky, who was one of the world’s most sought-after models, but it made a nice change to realise that being the brainy daughter rather than the beautiful one wasn’t such a bad thing.
It was likely that Becky’s fame and high profile were the reasons she had been targeted by the kidnappers. Perhaps they had tied Becky up—or worse, Clare thought sickly, as she remembered the severed piece of earlobe the kidnappers had sent her.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Allowing her imagination to run away with her would not help Becky. In an attempt to take her mind off the situation she searched for a topic of conversation.
‘What exactly does a gold prospector do? I mean, I realise that you search for gold, but there must be more to it than that.’
‘Actually, it’s pretty much as you described. I take my metal detector to areas where I think there might be gold deposits.’
‘But how do you know where to start looking?’
‘I have a good knowledge of geology and I know how to recognise signs of mineralisation. I carry equipment that allows me to analyse rocks, but often it’s down to intuition. I’ve been looking for, and mining, gold and diamonds for many years.’
Clare’s eyes were drawn to the prospector’s darkly tanned fingers on the steering wheel and she recalled that when she had shaken his hand the skin on his palm had felt rough, as if he was used to manual work. ‘Have you actually worked in mines? What made you choose such a dangerous job?’
He shrugged. ‘I needed to make a living, but I left school with few qualifications, which limited my career options,’ he said drily. ‘Mining is dangerous but it’s well paid.’
A poorly educated miner who read Tolstoy and poetry? Clare studied his chiselled profile and wondered where he had learned to speak faultless English, albeit with a sexy accent. She flushed when he turned his head and caught her looking at him. ‘You obviously lead an interesting life, Mr Cazorra,’ she murmured.
‘My name is Diego,’ he reminded her. ‘I’ve got a question for you, Sister. What made you decide to become a nun?’
Oh, help. She bit her lip as she searched her mind for an answer.
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you are a beautiful young woman and committing yourself to a life of chastity is not normal, in my opinion.’
She shot him a startled glance at the same time as he turned his head towards her, and their eyes met. Once again she was aware of a sizzle of sexual chemistry between them. Did he really think she was beautiful? For years she had compared her very ordinary features to her sister’s stunning looks and she had never had much self-confidence in her appearance.
The Mother Superior had warned her that the prospector was a womaniser, Clare reminded herself. He probably flirted with every woman he met, but even if he did find her attractive, she could not respond to the gleam in his eyes without blowing her cover that she was a nun. She realised he was waiting for her to answer his question, but lying did not come naturally to her.
‘All of us are on a personal journey, and this is the road I have chosen to take,’ she said vaguely. It was not entirely untruthful because the road to Torrente led to her sister. She was eager to change the subject and at that moment a flock of brightly coloured birds flew out of the trees.
‘Oh, look! Are they parrots? I’ve only ever seen a parrot in a cage. There is such a huge diversity of wildlife in the rainforest. I recently watched a documentary about the Amazon. Did you know that over a thousand species of birds are found in the Amazon basin?’ Clare was determined to keep the prospector’s attention away from her personal life. ‘Sister Ann said you know the rainforest well. I suppose you must get the chance to see many different species of wildlife?’
He gave another shrug. ‘I’ve hunted wild boar occasionally if I needed a meal and run out of supplies. And it’s always a good idea to check your sleeping bag before you get into it in case a tarantula has crawled inside.’
‘Really?’ Clare paled. ‘I hate spiders.’ She winced as the Jeep hit a pothole in the road and she was jolted in her seat, only saved from hitting her head on the window by her seat belt. The dirt road was becoming progressively bumpier as they drove further west, and the trees on either side grew so densely that in places they formed a tunnel that the sunlight could barely penetrate. She did not want to think about spiders or any other deadly creatures that might be lurking in the humid gloom of the forest. Nor did she want to think of the evil men who had snatched Becky. She forced her mind to more pleasant thoughts. ‘I believe there are many different species of monkeys living in the rainforest. Do you like monkeys, Mr Cazorra?’
‘To eat?’ he drawled.
‘Of course not. You don’t really eat monkeys, do you?’ She gave him a horrified look, only realising when he grinned that he was teasing her. His smile should come with a danger warning, she thought, feeling the hard points of her nipples chafe against her lacy bra. Her inconvenient awareness of the prospector was making a stressful situation even worse. She could not bring herself to use his first name, preferring to keep a sense of formality between them. With a deep sigh, she turned her head and stared out of the window to remark on interesting flora and fauna as the Jeep bounced along the uneven road.
They had been travelling for a couple of hours when the first drops of rain landed on the windscreen and quickly turned the dust-covered glass opaque, despite the efforts of the windscreen wipers.
Diego cursed beneath his breath as within seconds the shower became a torrential downpour. From experience he knew the potholes in the road would soon fill up and the road would turn into