“Exactly,” he said. “I am not going to let the bastard pin this on me. He knows exactly why I rescued you from Suerte del Mar, but you can bet the house he’s not going to share that bit of information with the policía.”
Rescued? Is that what he called scaring the life out of her, dragging her down the beach at machete-point and paddling her across the open ocean with sharks circling them?
“The chief of police in Puerto Jiménez and I go way back,” he went on.
Somehow she didn’t find it surprising that this man had had brushes with the law before, given his criminal record so far. Ren Galvez’s name was probably engraved on a cell somewhere, at the very least.
“He’s a good man, a rare breed among officials down here who can’t be bribed. If we can make it there, I know I can convince Mañuel Solera of what really happened.”
He smiled again, looking entirely too cheerful under the circumstances. “Good thing I brought you some decent shoes.”
He rummaged through a box and held up a pair of hiking boots.
The sight of them filled her with dread. “Uh, why do I need decent shoes?”
“There’s a trail through the Gulfo Dulce Forest Reserve to El Tigre. We can hook up with it back on the track we were just on. The good news is, it’s only ten miles or so. Once in El Tigre, we can catch a ride into Jiménez.”
She did not like the sound of this. Ten miles or so? He couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t really expect her to walk ten miles through the jungle, could he?
“Um, I’m not much of a hiker. I should probably tell you that up front. You’re obviously in a hurry and I’m afraid I’ll only slow you down. Why don’t you just go on ahead? I’m sure I can find my way back to the road.”
Maybe.
“Nice try. Trust me, sweetheart. You don’t want to wait for Rafferty to find you. He won’t be in a pleasant mood.”
If they were going to talk about moods, she was pretty certain she had James Rafferty beat when it came to lousy ones right about now. She was tired and scared and hadn’t eaten in about seven hours.
The jungle around them teemed with life, buzzing insects and the flap of fruit bats overhead. She heard a rustle in the bushes of some unseen creature, then a terrifying, low-throated yowl from what sounded like only a few yards away.
She gasped and grabbed for him in the darkness, grabbing hold of his shirt and a good portion of warm skin. When faced with the alternatives, a delusional man with a machete didn’t seem like such a bad bet.
“What was that?” she gasped.
He shrugged and she felt his muscles ripple. “Sounded like a puma. They’re pretty common out here. He’s farther away than he sounded, though. And he probably won’t bother us.”
Probably was not exactly reassuring.
“If you’re talking mammals, it’s not the big cats you should worry about so much out here as the white-lipped peccaries.”
“P-peccaries?” She realized she was still clinging to his arm and quickly released him. Immediately, she felt chilled, even though the air was still heavy and warm.
She had seen a small herd of wild peccaries once while visiting her grandmother in south Texas and had no desire to bump into any out here in the dark.
“It’s not uncommon to see a herd of twenty or more out here. Don’t worry, though. You’ll smell them and hear the cracking of their teeth long before you see them. Once you hear them, all you have to do to get away is climb a tree.”
She swallowed a sob. She so didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be safe and dry and blessedly cool in Fort Worth in her condo, even if that meant she had to deal with all the wedding gifts that needed to be returned and hear a dozen messages from her father on her answering machine trying to change her mind.
Sometimes you’ve got to just play the cards you’re dealt, sugar. She could hear her maternal grandmother’s drawl in her ear and knew Belinda was right. She didn’t have a lot of choices. At the moment, this man didn’t seem inclined to hurt her and had actually gone out of his way to be solicitous. Though it seemed insane, she was going to have to trust him, at least until she could figure out a way out of this mess.
“Sit down and let’s change your shoes. You’re going to have to wear a pair of my socks. Sorry about that.”
He pulled out a flashlight and a moment later a beam of light shone into his pack. He dug around for a moment, then produced a pair of thick socks. “Hurry.
We don’t have much time,” he said as he handed them to her, then pulled a pair of hiking boots from the box he’d thrown into the Jeep at the last moment.
She leaned against a tree trunk and hurriedly pulled them on, wincing a little at the pinch of wearing someone else’s shoes. Surely not his. They were far too small, most definitely made for a woman’s foot.
It seemed an odd, almost ominous sign to her. Why would he have a pair of women’s hiking boots when she’d seen no signs of anyone female living at his abode?
Maybe he was some kind of crazed serial killer who dressed his victims in hiking boots and marched them into the rain forest.
She cursed herself for her vivid imagination. That’s what came from watching too many crime dramas on TV.
When the boots were laced, he reached a hand to help her from the trunk.
“Sweet thing like you is going to be eaten alive out here,” he murmured, standing entirely too close. Her pulse cranked up a notch. Here was the part where she should probably decide she would rather risk the jungle than whatever grisly fate he had in store for her, but somehow she couldn’t make her legs cooperate.
She held her breath, praying he couldn’t hear the harsh pounding of her heart. A moment later, she winced at her foolishness as he doused her with bug spray. “That’s going to wear off in an hour, so remind me to spray you again.”
Without another word, he shouldered his backpack, aimed his flashlight into the thick vegetation, and headed off without looking back to see if she followed.
She could escape right now, just turn around and race through the trees until she was out of his sight. She could try to find her way back to the main road and take her chances with Rafferty’s mood.
Or she could stay here and let the pumas and the jaguars and the white-lipped peccaries get her.
Torn, her insides churning with indecision, she froze. Finally, he must have clued in that she wasn’t behind him. He stopped and aimed his flashlight at her. “Come on. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us, but with any luck you’ll be on a plane back to the States by this time tomorrow.”
He could have just been telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. A madman would have no reason to tell the truth. Though she warned herself to be cautious, she still found great comfort in his words.
With a long, resigned sigh, she followed him, feeling as if she were leaving more of her common sense behind with every step she took in the unfamiliar boots.
Though it was full dark and had to be past nine o’clock at night by now, the heat still weighed heavily on her. It pressed against her in every direction until she felt as if she were walking through hot gelatin. The trail was muddy from the rains earlier—the constant rains, apparently—and soon the mysterious new boots were caked in it. With every step, more mud clung to the boots until she felt as if she were lifting half the trail as she stepped.
After only a few minutes,