LITMIR.BIZ

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been good, at the very least. He thought of his few meager pieces of clothing, none of which would remotely fit the boy. Where was he supposed to find kid’s clothing around here? Department stores didn’t exactly dot the jungle.

      “I can send some cloth down from the house. I’ll tell Consuela to make something for him,” the woman suggested.

      He had a feeling Don Pedro wouldn’t be pleased if he knew that his woman visited the barracks and chatted with a foot soldier. She was going to get him in trouble. But a decent chunk of cloth would have been nice. “Much appreciated.”

      He put a hand on Mochi’s shoulder then stepped back, drawing the boy with him.

      “You don’t sound local.”

      “Part Mexican, part Zapotec, part Texan.” He didn’t like the way her eyes lit up at the Texan part. She better not think he would be her helping hand with her troubles. He had compromised this op badly enough already by taking responsibility for Mochi.

      “I’m Melanie Key. From Austin. Do you go back to the U.S. sometimes?” She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for the answer.

      “Never.” He squashed any budding hope decisively and turned Mochi around to go. “Come on, buddy.”

      They needed to have a talk about what areas of the compound were safe and unsafe, how to stay out of the way. This place was different than the jungle. The kid needed a whole new kind of survival training.

      He nodded to Melanie and left her where she stood. He didn’t know what her troubles were, but he wasn’t going to get involved in them under any circumstances.

      He’d learned his lesson the last time, with a Venezuelan journalist whose long legs had somehow convinced him that he had to save her from the secret police, even if that side adventure jeopardized his mission in the country. Only she’d been a counterspy, sent to turn him.

      She’d been good. He’d fallen for her, and he didn’t fall easily. He didn’t do relationships. So sure, he had a hard time resisting damsels in distress. He enjoyed a good rescue, but at the end he always walked away.

      But he wasn’t going to have to walk away from Melanie, because this was one crazy side adventure he wasn’t going to walk into, to start with.

      He was going to have a very simple motto when it came to her and those troubled, gold-speckled eyes of hers: STAY AWAY.

      DON PEDRO WAITED at the top of the stairs with a frown on his hawkish face when Melanie returned to the hacienda from the barracks. “Where have you been?”

      Her heart beat in her throat as she looked up at her brother-in-law. Her body tensed. He was shorter than she, but somehow always managed to loom over her. “Stretching my legs. I needed fresh air.”

      “That’s why you have the balcony.” His small, mud-colored eyes flashed.

      “Not much room here for a walk,” she said good-naturedly, determined to keep things light despite the gathering tension in the air. “The men look busy. Lots of running around out there.”

      His thin upper lip curled. “Some idiot might be coming to challenge me. Who the hell does he think he is?” He pointed his index finger at Melanie. “You are not to leave the house. You carry my sole heir.”

      They never discussed it, but she sort of figured he couldn’t have children of his own. And Julio, the husband she’d lost to a drunk driver in Rio seven months ago, had been Pedro’s only brother.

      She took the steps slowly, hoping he would move off before she reached the top, but he stayed where he stood.

      He put a hand on her arm when she reached him, a milder expression replacing the anger on his face. “Come sit with me for a while. We should spend more time together.” He nodded toward his bedroom.

      “My back aches from the walk. I should probably lie down.” She pressed her hands to the small of her back and hoped she looked drawn enough to be convincing.

      Displeasure flashed in his eyes, impatience tightening the muscles of his jaw. He watched her closely, as if contemplating whether or not to push, but at the end he let her go. “We wouldn’t want to harm the child.”

      He wanted her son first and foremost. He wanted her, too, in his bed, although not nearly as badly. But once he had her baby…

      “You’ll stay inside,” he said, his voice hard steel again, before he turned to stalk into his office.

      When he’d been at the family mansion in the city, he’d consorted with models and actresses. She’d seen the type of women; she’d attended a number of his lavish receptions. There, he acted the successful businessman, all charm and generosity. Here in camp, where he at last showed his true face, the cooking women served his basic needs. She’d heard the noises, would no doubt hear them again today when one of them brought Pedro’s lunch up to him.

      She hurried to her room and locked the door behind her before he could decide he wanted to deviate from the routine. She sank into the chair in the corner and put her feet on the small stool. Her ankles were swelling again.

      Her baby kicked. She pressed her hand against the spot, loving the feel of that connection. Part of her couldn’t wait to see her son, part of her panicked at the thought that in a month, he would be born and she would become a mother.

      She wasn’t ready.

      She’d planned on growing up before the baby came. She’d wanted and needed to change. She needed to become a strong and independent woman, because that was the sort of mother she wanted to be. She had planned on doing a lot of work on herself before they got to this stage.

      Then Pedro had trapped her and derailed her plans. Nothing was going to happen now as she’d planned it. She thought of the pretty nursery she’d been working on in her apartment back in Rio. The crib. That was where she’d planned to raise her baby, not here.

      She pushed to her feet and waddled over to the armoire, bent—not without some difficulty—and fished out the backpack she’d come here with. The bag was on the smallish side, but she wasn’t going on a long trip. And she couldn’t carry too much extra weight anyway. She was carrying enough already.

      She put the bag on the bed and closed her eyes for a second. God, she really was going to do this.

      She’d been in denial these past few months. She hadn’t believed Pedro was really going to hold her here. She’d thought he would come to his senses, reach deep and find some last, forgotten shred of decency.

      He hadn’t. She’d made a mistake to think that because he was Julio’s brother, the two men would be similar in some basic way. But Pedro wasn’t bound by any sense of honor. Pedro did what he wanted, took what he wanted.

      She knew that now, but it was almost too late.

      She packed some clothes—a pair of lightweight maternity pants and a long-sleeved shirt—most of the fruit from the fruit bowl on the table, her box of prenatal vitamins and the antimalaria pills she’d been taking faithfully.

      She could hear Pedro talking to someone at the top of the landing. She listened for the voices, trying to gauge whether they were coming closer. Locked door or not, if he knocked, she would have to let him in. Otherwise, he’d just kick the door in. He’d done that before.

      She hurried.

      Jase. She tasted the name on her lips. He was the one. He was going to save her.

      Trouble was coming. She’d caught the sense of increased tension, caught bits and pieces of talk here and there, saw the hustle and bustle outside. She wanted to be gone by the time the fighting began. Or before her sinister brother-in-law completely lost his patience with her.

      Jase seemed to be different than the average thug around camp. That he was part American had to count for something. And while he looked just as hard-edged and dangerous as the others, he didn’t have that sense of depravity about him that defined

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