Michael's Temptation

His fingers unfastened the many-pocketed vest. His eyes stayed on her face. “Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing that concerns you.” Annoyed—with him for noticing, with herself for tripping once more over the past—she blinked back the dampness and the memories. “Do you have any idea what we do next?”

“Start walking.” He tossed the vest aside and began unbuttoning his shirt. “I scraped my shoulder. You’d better have a look.”

He was sleek all over. Not slim—his shoulders were broad, the skin a darker copper than on his legs—but sleek, like an otter or a cat. His stomach was a work of art, all washboard ripples, and his chest was smooth, the nipples very dark. Her mouth went dry.

She moved behind him. There was a scrape along his left shoulder blade, and in spite of the protection of his shirt, the skin was broken. “I’ll have to use some ointment.” She squeezed some onto her fingers. “Where do we walk?”

“Over the mountains, I’m afraid. To Honduras.”

“Honduras?” She frowned as she touched her fingertips to his lacerated skin, applying the ointment as gently as possible. “I haven’t known where I was since they took me and Sister Maria Elena out of La Paloma, but I thought we were closer to the coast.”

“The river we just body-surfed down is the Tampuru. I’m guessing we’re about forty miles upstream of the point where it joins the Rio Maño.”

She wasn’t as familiar with the mountainous middle and north of the country as she was with the south. Still… “Shouldn’t we follow the river downstream, then? The government is in control of the lowlands, and Santo Pedro is on the Rio Maño.” Santo Pedro was a district capital, so it must be a fair-sized city. Telephones, she thought. Water you didn’t have to boil. And doctors, for his wound.

“Too much risk of running into El Jefe’s troops. Last I heard, there was fighting around Santo Pedro. If the government is successful—and I think it will be—the rebels will be pushed back. They’re likely to retreat this way.”

She shivered. “And if the government isn’t successful, we can’t wander into Santo Pedro looking for help.” At least she couldn’t. He might be able to, though. “You could probably pass for a native. None of the soldiers saw your face, and from what I heard, your Spanish is good.”

“Wrong accent.” He shrugged back into his wet shirt. “As soon as I opened my mouth I’d blend in about as well as an Aussie in Alabama. We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

She sighed. “I’m sure we’ll run across a village sooner or later. This area is primitive but not uninhabited.”

“We probably will, but we can’t stop at any of them.”

“But we don’t have any food! No tent, no blankets—nothing!”

“We’ll eat. Not well, but I can keep us from starving. We can’t risk being seen. Some villagers will be loyal to El Jefe. Most are afraid of him. Someone might carry word of our presence to him.”

“Even if they did, why would he care? He has better things to do than chase us. Especially if his campaign is going badly.”

“If it is, he and his ragtag army may be headed this way. And he won’t be in a good mood. Do you want to risk having him punish a whole village for helping us?”

That silenced her.

“Your turn. Take off your shirt, Rev.”

Her lips tightened. “If you want me to follow orders like a good little soldier, you’re going to have to call me by name. And my name is not Rev.”

Unexpectedly, he grinned—a crooked, very human grin that broke the beautiful symmetry of his face into something less perfect. And a good deal more dangerous. “Stubborn, aren’t you? All right, A.J. Strip.”

There was a path away from the river. It wasn’t much, just an animal trail, and not meant to accommodate six feet of human male, but it was the only way into the dense growth near the river. Michael found a sturdy branch he could use as a walking stick—and to knock bugs or snakes from overhanging greenery.

At first, neither of them spoke. It took too much energy to shove their way through the brush and branches. Soon they were moving slowly up a steep, tangled slope.

A machete would have been nice, Michael thought as he bent to fit through a green, brambled tunnel. Hacking his way with one of those long blades couldn’t have been much noisier than the progress they made without one. He had his knife, but it was too short for trail-blazing. It was also too important to their survival for him to risk dulling the edge, so he made do with his walking stick.

His leg hurt like the devil.

He’d really done it this time, hadn’t he? He should never have complicated the operation in order to rescue a native. Even if she was a nun.

But Michael remembered the round, wrinkled face smiling up at him, and sighed. Stupid or not, there was no way he could have left Sister Maria Elena in the hands of a madman who made war on innocents.

His white-knight complex had put him in one hell of a bad spot, though. He hadn’t exaggerated the danger of seeking help in a village. They wouldn’t have to encounter El Jefe himself to be in big trouble. This area was smack dab in the middle of the easiest line of retreat for El Jefe’s troops if the action at Santo Pedro went against them, and soldiers on the losing side of a war were notoriously apt to turn vicious. The rebels already had a name for brutality. If El Jefe was defeated, his control over the worst of his men would be gone, leaving only one thing standing between the pretty minister and rape, probably followed by death: Michael.

And he was wounded.

He pushed a vine aside, set the end of his stick into the spongy ground and kept moving. Already he was leaning more heavily on the stick than when they’d first set out.

His lips tightened. Pain could slow him down, but it wasn’t a major problem. The real worry was infection, and there was damned little he could do about it. When the Reverend had made a fuss about treating him first he’d let her have her way, but that had been for her sake. She needed to feel useful, to feel in control of something. The few minutes’ difference in getting his leg treated wouldn’t have mattered. Not after his long soak in the river.

“Watch out for the branch,” he said, ducking beneath an overhanging limb.

“Tell me, Lieutenant,” said a disgruntled voice behind him. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

In spite of his mood, Michael felt a grin tug at his mouth. He knew why he’d been demoted to a title. Her legs had looked every bit as delicious bare as he’d hoped. Better. He’d enjoyed looking them over—enjoyed it enough to make the first part of their hike uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with his leg.

That kind of discomfort he didn’t mind. “I’m looking for high ground so I can figure out where we are and plan a route.”

“How?”

“I’ve got eyes, a map, a compass and a GPS device.” If he had to be saddled with a civilian, at least he’d drawn one with guts and stamina. She didn’t complain, didn’t insist on meaningless reassurances. She just kept going.

Couldn’t ask for more than that. “What does A.J. stand for?”

“Alyssa Jean. I’m not fluent in acronym. What does GPS mean?”

“Global Positioning System.” His brother Jacob had given him the gadget for his birthday, saying that this way Michael would know where he was, even if no one else did. “It talks to satellites and fixes my location on a digital map.”

“Is that the thing you were fiddling with back at the river?”

“Yeah.” He’d set the first waypoint after checking her out for scratches. He smiled. Man, those were great legs.

“I hope it’s more watertight than your first aid kit.”

“Seems to be. Why do you go by A.J.? Alyssa’s a pretty name.”

“First-grade trauma,” she said, her voice wry and slightly winded, “combined with stubbornness. There were three Alyssas in my class. I didn’t want to share my name, so I became A.J. It suited me. I was something of a tomboy as a kid.”

“How does a tomboy end up a minister?” A minister with long, silky legs and small, high breasts…and blue eyes. That had surprised him. Somehow he’d thought they’d be brown, a gentle, sensible color. But they were blue. Sunny-sky blue.

“Same way anyone else does, I guess. I felt called to the ministry, so after college I enrolled in seminary.” There was a scuffling sound, and what sounded suspiciously like a muffled curse. He paused, glancing over his shoulder.

She was climbing to her feet. “A root got me. Maybe I need a stick like yours.”

“I’ll keep my eye out for one.” They were near the top of the hill. Maybe he would let himself rest for a few minutes while he plugged in the new waypoint. His thigh was throbbing like a mother.