Chapter 6

Chapter Six

San Isidro, Puerto Jardin

Present Day

AS SHE CREPT ALONG the heavily overgrown path, Zo could hear her parents' warnings echoing through her brain. Never go into the rainforest without an adult. When she'd been older, the refrain had changed. Never go into the rainforest alone. Walking through it by herself and at night? It would have gotten her grounded for the summer.

She knew the dangers. Her mom and dad had listed them at the start of every season and always did one or two reminder lectures to make sure she didn't forget. Those were the daytime dangers. The nocturnal ones were likely worse.

To stop herself from speculating on those, she ran a checklist in her head of everyone she'd need to pay back later. She'd taken food and water from about a dozen different people. Zo had borrowed a knife, a compass, and a gun from Se?or Otero. From Se?or Garcia, she'd taken another pistol with a holster and a machete. The third gun she carried was small and light, something Tio Luis had bought for Tia Izel. The older woman had relegated it to the shed, much to her husband's displeasure. But he kept it cleaned and in good order.

Getting it hadn't been easy.

Finn had taught her how to pick a padlock, but when she practiced, it had been secured in a vise with a bright light to help her see what she was doing. Tonight, she'd been kneeling on the wooden decking in front of the shed, penlight in her mouth, trying to work the lock with two bobby pins while it rocked on the hasp. She'd needed another set of hands. It had been sheer dumb luck that she somehow managed to open the thing.

Finn. Her stomach clenched, but he'd make it safely to town. She refused to believe anything else.

The trail held about as many memories as the inn. How many times had she gone back and forth between San Isidro and the ruins? Hundreds, easily. But never by herself.

Usually, it had been with Mari.

Zo pushed the empty feeling away. Her best friend in the entire world, the sister of her heart, had been missing for more than two years. Her search for Marianna had caused Zo to cross Finn's path multiple times. If she ever saw her again—

No, when she saw Mari again, Zo would have to tell her how it was her fault she'd gotten tangled up with a Special Forces soldier who'd become the love of her life.

San Isidro, Puerto Jardin

27 Months Earlie r

Zo dropped onto the bench and leaned back. The rainforest had been tamed here, creating a private oasis on the edge of town, and she needed the peace. Needed the calm of lush green, bright flowers, and birdsong.

The mercenary had followed her this morning.

He was good. She wouldn't have noticed him, except San Isidro was small, and she was so in tune with him that her cells buzzed when he was nearby. Zo was pretty sure she knew why he'd trailed after her—he didn't like the coincidence of her being in the same inn he was staying at—but she'd been here for two weeks. He was the one who'd arrived unexpectedly. It made her uneasy. He was up to something.

And Alfonso Ramos' hacienda wasn't far from here.

She extended her legs and crossed them at the ankle. Part of her wanted to warn him that Al wasn't completely stable. He'd have better luck with Silva. The bastard might be as deadly and dangerous as they came, but he was logical. Ramos? Not so much. At least, not all the time.

With a frown, she shut her eyes. The mercenary wasn't her responsibility, and he had training. He could take care of himself. Marianna couldn't.

Zo needed to keep her attention on her friend, on finding her before Silva hurt her, but the thought of leaving Finley to face Ramos without warning him didn't sit comfortably with her.

She could give him a head's up since there was nothing she could do about Mari today anyway. On Sunday, Silva went to mass and spent the rest of the day with his family. There was no sense sitting in front of his home, waiting for him to leave, because he wouldn't. It would take her five minutes to fill Finley in on Al, and she'd return to the inn and help Tia Izel in the kitchen.

Zo sighed. She wanted to avoid the mercenary. Normally, her control was perfect. She'd always been able to focus on her goals and tune out everything and everyone else. Only, she couldn't stop thinking about Tom Finley. The man destroyed her common sense.

Take this morning in the bathroom. If Tio Luis hadn't shown up, who knew what might have happened?

She wasn't going to stress over it. If she hadn't been half asleep, her defenses would have been in place, and she would have stopped the kiss before it started. For damn sure, she wouldn't have returned his kisses. Zo shifted as the throb between her thighs returned.

It was effortless to remember the press of the mercenary's body against hers, how he'd held her waist. How hard his cock had been and how good it had felt pressed against her mound. Simply thinking about his kiss, the stroke of his fingers on her skin… Shaking her head to get off that train of thought, Zo considered the way he'd protected her instead of slamming her into the wall. Never mind that he wouldn't have had to do it if he hadn't been launching an attack.

At her height, she wasn't used to men towering over her, but Finley had to be around six-foot-four, and he was muscular. Standing toe-to-toe like that had actually made her feel petite.

Damn it. She had to stop thinking about him. Even if she couldn't do anything today to help Mari, she should be planning her next strategy. Following Silva had gotten her nowhere, and if she was as obvious as Finley had implied, then the approach wouldn't pay off, and she needed another idea. Too bad she didn't have a clue what else she could do.

Heat flushed through her, starting low in her belly an instant before someone sat beside her on the bench. She didn't need to open her eyes to know who it was. "Go away."

"I was looking for you."

"Too bad."

"Where'd you disappear to, anyway?" he asked.

"I received an invitation for lunch." Zo's lips curved as she thought about Se?or Garcia. The elderly man had been lonely since his wife died, and he had a million stories to tell. She'd still be sitting at his table, listening, if he hadn't started to doze off.

Tom Finley grunted, but Zo kept her eyes shut. If she didn't look at him, perhaps he'd leave. "Why are you here?" she asked.

"Maybe I missed you."

Her pulse surged, and Zo silently cursed her response to this man. "Does anyone fall for your bullshit?"

"What makes you think it was bullshit?" His voice held a note of humor. It was barely detectable, but she picked up on it.

"You can't miss someone you don't know."

"But, I do know you. Zofia Parker, age twenty-six. Your parents are archaeologists who used to share responsibility with an archaeologist from Rio Blanco for a dig site outside of town. You were a preschooler when you started coming down here. That explains why you speak Spanish with a Puerto Jardinese accent," he added as an aside. "Izel Alvarez, the innkeeper's wife, was your babysitter until you were old enough to go to the ruins. You have a master's degree in archaeology, but instead of finishing your PhD, you dropped out two years ago and went to work for the Paladin League, a non-profit that gives grants to archaeologists for excavations."

Zo straightened and opened her eyes to glare at him. "You've been interrogating the townspeople," she accused, voice low.

Finley gave her an innocent look. "You wouldn't tell me anything, so I went to secondary sources."

She ground her teeth and struggled to contain her anger. Zo couldn't believe anyone who knew her would casually pass on the information, but some of the elderly people in San Isidro were too trusting. "You know facts. You don't know me."

"I want to know you. "

Something in his voice suggested an intimacy deeper than sex, and she edged over, putting more space between them. "And I don't know anything about you," she continued as if he hadn't said anything.

"Tom Finley, but you can call me Finn. I'm twenty-nine. I can't tell you what my parents did. I was abandoned as a toddler, and I bounced around the foster care system too much to refer to any of those families as mine."

"Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?"

He scowled at her. "Lady, I don't need your pity."

Zo frowned back at him. "I don't like being called lady."

"So far, you've said I can't use sweetheart, lady, or Zo. What am I supposed to call you?"

She wanted to tell him that he didn't need to call her anything, but it seemed as if they were going to keep bumping into each other. "If those are my three options, go with Zo." She had to force the words out because hearing him say her name would make her stupid body go into hyper-lust.

Like it's not there already.

"Zo," he said quietly as if savoring her name.

Definitely hyper-lust. What was it about him that undermined her resolve? "Foster care. Is that why you joined the Army?" she asked, trying to get her mind off sex.

"There weren't a lot of options when I finished high school."

A breeze came through the garden, ruffling his blond hair. It was darker near the roots, but the sun had lightened the last few inches to a near-platinum shade. Finn—damn it, the mercenary—pushed it off his face, and Zo curled her fingers into her palms to keep herself from brushing back the strands he missed. His green eyes sparkled with intelligence and warmed her with his obvious interest. He had a strong jaw with a slight hint of a cleft, his beard unable to conceal that, high cheekbones, and lips she wanted to feel on hers. Again. The only flaw she could see was a bump on the bridge of his nose.

"How'd you break your nose?" she asked, then wanted to kick herself for showing curiosity.

"I fell out of a tree and hit a branch on my way down."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was eight. Why? Did you think someone punched me?" His slight smile sent a shiver coursing through her.

Damn it, she was becoming fascinated by him again. So get up and leave. She should. Except Zo couldn't make herself stand. She wished she could lie and pretend she stayed to protect the town, but she knew better. It was him and the way she felt when she was with him.

"You are a mercenary."

A mask seemed to slip over his face. "You keep bringing that up."

Zo tried to keep her mouth shut, but the words escaped anyway. "Why the hell did you decide to hire out?"

He shrugged. "The military is the only thing I know."

"Then you should have stayed in the Army."

"Pay's better here."

She huffed out a loud breath, pissed that she'd said anything. Had she really thought he was in it for something other than money? What a sap. "As long as the pay's better, who cares about the innocent people in Puerto Jardin? Are you in town to see if you can hire on with Ramos? There's probably more financial gain for you in narcotics than war."

His neutral expression slipped for an instant, but his voice was level when he asked, "You think I'd deal drugs?"

"Why not? If the pay's better, it doesn't matter how you earn it."

The mercenary stared at her, then shook his head. "You might not think much of me, but I draw the line at drugs."

"Then you must be down here to sell arms to Al." Zo glared at him. "That's not going to work. He's never going to anger Torres, his long-term supplier, for a one-off deal."

Finley didn't say anything, his expression carefully blank, and Zo's brain made a couple of jumps. "Wait a second," she said. "You're not interested in selling guns to Ramos. You just want Silva to think you are. Why—?" She stopped short. "Silva is taking too long to get back to you, and you have a deadline for making the deal."

He didn't react.

"Son of a bitch! That means some of Torres' men are in San Isidro. This town might not mean anything to you, but it means something to me. It means something to its residents, and you deliberately led gangsters here because an arms deal was moving too slowly for you."

The mercenary grabbed her wrist before she could leap to her feet. "If you think Torres didn't already know about San Isidro, then you're not as smart as I thought. I guarantee he checked out everything about Ramos before he sold him the first M4. Torres isn't interested in some backwater in the rainforest. There's no benefit to him or his organization." He tightened his hold when Zo tried to pull free. "Put your emotions aside and think."

Zo glared at him, but it only took a moment to realize he was right. Torres wasn't some small-time operator, and San Isidro offered him nothing—not location, not resources. "If anyone gets hurt, I'm holding you responsible." This time when she tugged, he released her.

"It'll be fine. Trust me."

Trust him? She shook her head and took a deep breath to calm down. "Well, at least I don't have to warn you about how dangerous Al is." She leaned back against the bench, and after a moment of quiet, she said, "You could use the GI bill to attend college."

"I already did. "

That surprised her, and she straightened, turning to face him again. "Did you graduate?"

Finley nodded. "My degree is in political science."

She scrutinized him briefly before deciding he was telling the truth. "So you can understand the reasons behind the conflicts you're hired to fight in?"

He smiled. Not a grin, but more than the slight curve of his lips that she'd seen previously. "You don't give up, do you?"

Since she'd already mentioned people's lives without fazing him, Zo gestured off to her right. "If you head that direction, you'll end up at the Huarona ruins, the site my parents and Doctor Castillo were in charge of. There are only two identified Huarona locations, and almost nothing is known about the civilization. The civil war ended the study of who those people were. No one will issue grant money for work in Puerto Jardin while there's shooting going on, and without financing..." She shrugged.

"Maybe it's a good thing no one is working. I heard a rumor the government is selling antiquities to finance the war."

"That's more than a rumor." Zo's stomach twisted as she thought about the history lost into private collections. And Torres and his organization were suspected of aiding and abetting the government by brokering the deals. Bastards.

Her shoulder brushed Finn's, but she didn't shift away. His touch left her tingly, and she liked the sensation.

They sat in silence for a while, then he said, "Zo?"

"What?"

"What's your interest in Henri Silva?"

She'd been so lost in hearing him say her name that the question took her off guard. Zo nearly told him her best friend was missing. The idea of having his help to find her was tempting, but in the next heartbeat, she realized he could use the information to buy favor with Silva, and she couldn't trust a mercenary not to sell her out. "None of your business. "

Zo got to her feet, but before she could leave, he stood, too, and blocked her path. "Don't get in his way. Silva will hurt you, and he won't care you're a woman."

"I know that."

"Then act like it."

The mercenary glowered at her, but there was more than aggravation in his eyes, and the banked heat derailed her self-command. She stared at his lips, remembering what they felt like against hers.

"Don't look at me like that," he warned, voice thick, raspy.

"Like what?"

His hands went to her hips and he waited—maybe to see if she'd pull free—before tugging her against him. He shook his head. "I'm supposed to be smarter than this," he muttered, not answering her question, and lowered his mouth to hers. Slowly. Giving her time to refuse.

She was supposed to be smart, too, but Zo met him halfway.

There was nothing tentative about their kiss. They picked up almost where they left off in the bathroom. He took, she gave and demanded what she wanted in return. She nipped his bottom lip, used her tongue to soothe the sting and to tease him, and when he opened his mouth, Zo didn't hesitate.

He tasted of mint and coffee. Then he sucked her tongue, and she forgot about everything except what she was feeling. With a soft moan, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled herself more tightly against him.

"I want you naked," he said between kisses. His voice was guttural, almost incomprehensible. "I want hours with you in my bed." He nibbled on her upper lip.

"Not long enough. Days. Maybe."

"Days," he agreed, then took another kiss.

A sharp crack jerked his head up. Zo held her breath. His muscles were rigid, and as she watched, he homed in on the sound's location. It came a second time, and an engine rumbled to life. He relaxed.

"It's okay. A car backfired. It wasn't a gunshot."

He bent to kiss her again, but Zo backed away. She held up a hand when he took a step toward her. "No."

"Why?" he asked, an edge of frustration underneath the neutral tone.

"You're a death merchant. I never should have forgotten that." The fire in his eyes almost made her decide she didn't care—almost—but she shook her head, moved past him, and fled from the garden before her body could overrule her brain.