Michael's Temptation. Eileen Wilks

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      Four

      The sun was high in the sky, and it was hot. Headachy-hot, the kind of sullen heat that drains the body and dulls the mind. They moved among brush, oak and ocotino pines now, not true rain forest. Here, sunlight speckled the shade. Parrots screeched, monkeys chattered, and insects scuttled in the decaying vegetation underfoot. Sweat stung A.J.’s eyes and the scrape on her hand, picked up while scrambling over rocks earlier.

      Like they say, it’s not the heat, she told herself as she skidded downslope after Michael. It’s the blasted humidity. Or maybe it was exhaustion making her head throb. Or hunger. Or dehydration. Her mouth and throat were scratchy-dry.

      Best not to think about that.

      At least the rainy season was over. The mercury dipped slightly during the wet months, but the increase in humidity more than made up for that small drop. Afternoons became steam baths. Daily rains turned every dip into a puddle and roads into mud baths, and the mosquitoes bred like crazy.

      Not that roads were a consideration, she thought wistfully. They hadn’t seen any. They’d followed a shallow stream for a while, and that had made the going easier. It had also made her thirsty enough to drink her own sweat.

      She paused to wipe the perspiration from her face. Probably she should ask for Michael’s water bag, a reinforced plastic sack from one of his many pockets.

      Without a pot they couldn’t boil water to make it safe to drink, but he had iodine. He’d assured her it disinfected water as well as wounds, and he had treated water from the stream with it. Unfortunately, it tasted as nasty as it looked. She hadn’t been able to force down as much as she probably needed.

      He was angling to the left now, moving across the slope instead of straight down. With a sigh, she followed.

      His leg had to be hurting like a rotting tooth. He’d grown awfully quiet, too. Worried, she let her attention stray from the endless business of finding her footing to the man in front of her.

      The back of his neck was shiny with sweat; his hair clung there in damp curls. She wanted to touch those curls. To taste the salt on his skin. She wanted—oh, she wanted to stop thinking of that kiss.

      Why had she let it happen? One kiss shouldn’t complicate things so much…but it did. It left her hungry, needy, too aware of him. She didn’t want to come to life now—not here, not with this man. Oh, be honest, she told herself. The thought of becoming involved with anyone scared her silly. Such a coward she’d become! Dan would have hated that.

      Of course, the soldier in front of her hadn’t been thinking of getting involved in a relationship when he kissed her. He’d been thinking of sex, pure and simple. She was making too much of it.

      Yet she remembered the look in his eyes when he’d raised his head. Maybe it hadn’t been simple for him, either. And maybe, she thought as she skirted the trunk of a fallen giant, it wasn’t pain that had kept him quiet ever since he kissed her.

      Tired of her thoughts, she spoke. “How’s your leg?”

      “It’s holding up.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How about you? You’ve been quiet.”

      The echo of her thoughts about him made her smile. “Keeping my mouth shut is one way to avoid whining.”

      “Do you whine, then? You haven’t so far. Maybe you’re saving it for when things become difficult?”

      “As opposed to merely miserable, you mean?” The path widened, letting her move up beside him instead of trailing behind. “Whining is an energy-sapper, and I don’t have any of that to spare. And I don’t really have any business complaining. When I compare where I am now to where I was yesterday, my calves almost stop hurting.”

      “I guess a minister would be into counting blessings. Like, for example, not having stepped on a snake.”

      “Or into a fire ant bed,” she agreed. The bite of the tiny red forest ants hurt worst than a bee sting. “Then there’s the size of these mountains. We could have been stuck in the Andes—”

      “Not in San Christóbal, we couldn’t.”