Proposition: Marriage. Eileen Wilks

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СКАЧАТЬ Apparently she’d done some homework on San Tomás. “There’s a man in the village where we’re headed who can be trusted to get you back to the capital.” Which was where she should have stayed. The local government made great efforts to keep the beaches safe for tourists from the cruise ships. “Going south is out. Ruiz will have his troops watching the road.” He shouldered his backpack.

      She frowned. “Who’s Ruiz?”

      “The man who sent soldiers to kidnap you. Let’s go.”

      “Wait a minute.” She laid her hand on his arm. It was a small hand, surprisingly warm, with rounded fingernails that had been neatly manicured before she soaked them in a lake while hiding from guerrillas. Now the pretty pink polish was chipped. “Who are you? I mean, I saw you on the bus, but we weren’t introduced.”

      “John,” he said. It was as good a name as any, and the man he was taking her to thought of him as “John.”

      “John. I am very glad to meet you.” She smiled, and her fingers tightened in a friendly squeeze. “I’m Jane.”

      Heat, quick and compelling, dazzled his system for one crazy moment.

      “Thank you for—”

      “Come on.” He pulled away from her, looking for a game trail to take them deeper into the forest.

      She scrambled after him, making every bit as much noise as he’d expected she would. “What about west? Why aren’t we going west instead of heading into the hills?”

      “Go west if you want to. I’m going east.” The strength of his reaction to her disturbed him. He was familiar with the effects of danger—the heightened senses, the rush of adrenaline, the occasional swift slide from sensory stimulation into arousal. But he’d never reacted this fast, this hard, before. She’d only squeezed his arm, for heaven’s sake. One simple squeeze, and his body had gone on full alert.

      He didn’t just want to kiss the woman now. He wanted to lay her down on the spongy floor of the forest, push up her dress, pull down her panties and push inside her. He wanted to nde her until they both screamed.

      She followed without speaking. He’d almost hoped she’d turn around and head west—where, as she’d said, a town with a large garrison of the national police waited to welcome her back to what passed for civilization. Of course, Ruiz’s men would almost certainly pick her up before she’d gone a mile.

      They traveled in silence with him in the lead, moving slowly but steadily upward. The trails he took twisted and branched. He used the compass from his backpack to keep them heading in the right general direction, and by late afternoon they were deep in the rain forest and several hundred feet higher. The light here was shadowy and green, filtered by the leafy canopy overhead. Vague scurryings in the brush spoke of tiny lives being lived all around them, lives that had nothing to do with them. The man who called himself John was comforted by the indifference of his surroundings. Bit by bit, as they pressed farther into a world that cared not at all for their exalted status as humans, he relaxed back into his usual detachment

      It was just as well this was his last job. He’d known it was time to get out. Ever since Jack’s death he had known, but his reactions today were so far out of line he had to wonder if he should have agreed to take this job, even as a favor. He owed Patrick a great deal, but messing up this job wouldn’t repay him.

      He heard a muffled squeak and turned. She was brushing frantically at something on her arm, a spider or some other small, multi-legged creature. “Did it bite you?” Concern hit him with a quick, unexpected punch. Few of the creepie-crawlies on the island were dangerous, but—

      “No,” she said. “Its wiggly little legs got on me.” She looked as if she thought she’d been poisoned.

      “You saved the other one,” he pointed out. “In the lake. The beetle.”

      “It was going to drown.” She rubbed her arm as if she hoped to wipe the insect germs off. “I couldn’t just let it drown after... Well, the bug thought my arm was safe, and by holding still, I was sort of deceiving it. When it fell into the water, I felt responsible.”

      He looked at her, disbelieving. She’d felt responsible for a beetle? “Come on. I see a stump up ahead where you can sit. We need to get dry socks on.”

      “Why?” She limped after him. “Our shoes will still be wet.”

      “Jungle rot.” He stopped by the stump to unzip his backpack. “One of the first rules in climate and terrain like this is to keep your feet dry.” He handed her a pair of socks.

      She shuddered and sat down.

      He changed his own socks without sitting, balancing first on one leg, then the other, checking each foot for any small cuts or blisters. Open wounds in the tropics could be dangerous. When he had both shoes back on he looked at her and frowned. She was taking too long. She’d only done one foot. Her other foot was propped on her knee, her dress gathered up to her knees to droop in concealing folds between her parted legs. She was pulling the wet sock off slowly.

      The sock had a wide, lacy border. It also had a red stain. “You’re bleeding.”

      She eased the sock the rest of the way off. “Brilliant observation. Wet shoes and socks can rub blisters, you know.”

      He tightened his lips. “Leaving an open, untreated wound on the foot in a tropical zone is just begging for infection, fungus—” He shook his head, disgusted, as he unzipped the backpack. “What about your other foot?”

      “It’s fine.”

      He thought about the fact that she’d just kept going, without complaint, when her blister must have hurt like hell. “Take your shoe off.” He got out the ointment and gauze. “I want to check both feet.”

      She had an odd expression on her face. “It’s like my mother’s purse.”

      “What?”

      “Your backpack. It’s like my mother’s purse. She carries a tote the size of Manhattan, and it’s got everything in it. Having you got a sewing kit in there?” she asked, interested.

      As a matter of fact, he did. Among other things. He knelt in front of her and grabbed her foot.

      “Hey!”

      “Hold still.” She had small feet, with pearly pink toenails. He couldn’t keep from smiling when he saw those toenails. What was the point of painting them when she wasn’t wearing sandals? He looked at the blister on her heel that had burst and bled into her sock. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurting?”

      “Why? We couldn’t have stopped any earlier, anyway, could we?”

      “I need to know your limitations to plan properly.” There was a topical anaesthetic in the ointment, and he would pad the area with gauze. That, and the dry socks, should make her more comfortable, but he wouldn’t be able to keep her from hurting entirely. He frowned. Absently, he stroked his thumb along the bottom of her foot. It flexed in a quick, involuntary movement. “Are you ticklish?”

      “N-no.” Her eyes were dark when they met his. “I mean, yes.”

      He saw the heat in her eyes, heard СКАЧАТЬ