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  “Or eyedrops,” she said pointedly, then pulled out a foil-wrapped bar from a pocket on the side of her right knee. “Protein bar.” Then she went back for another and sat cross-legged on the spongy ground, lifting her hip to rearrange whatever was in a back pocket and using her teeth to tear the wrapping from each bar. She broke off an inch of each, then handed Zak and Gideon the balance.

  “All right,” Gideon said as he leaned against a tree trunk and stretched out his legs. “Now you’ve got me curious. What else is in your magic pockets, sweetheart?”

  While Zak knew that his brother was just as determined as he was to get the fuck out of all this green, he looked like he was settling in to score points with Acadia. Something about that made the hair on Zak’s neck stand up. They didn’t have time to sit here at all, let alone loiter around chatting like they were in a damned pickup bar.

  Gideon was using that voice. The voice he used when he wanted to get into some attractive woman’s pants.

  Sorry, bro. Been there, done that. And, God help him, he wanted to do it again.

  Why the hell did he feel like a third wheel?

  “I’m just happy you have them,” Gid answered—referring, Zak presumed, to her magic pockets. “And that you’re along for the ride.” Gideon grinned as he shoved a hank of long hair over his shoulder and repositioned the webbed strap of the Uzi across his chest. His eyes were shadowed and his skin looked pale against a day’s growth of beard. “Believe me, if I ever go on another survival adventure, I’m taking you with me.”

  “I don’t need another adventure, thank you. This trip was something my friends coerced me into doing to put a little spice in my life. I think even they’ll admit this is going way farther than any of us intended.” Holding a piece of protein bar between her teeth, she made a “wait” motion with an upheld finger.

  She took a tangle of rubber bands out of a breast pocket, untangled one, and handed it to Gideon. She closed her lips over the piece of protein bar and chewed as his brother acted like she’d just given him the keys to the castle and scooped his too-long hair back and secured it.

  “Marry me, woman.”

  “No thanks,” she replied cheerfully. “I suspect you two live life a little too far out on a limb for my small-town-girl tastes. I presume you were going to jump the falls with your brother?”

  “This week, jump the falls; next week, Alpine ice climbing.”

  Acadia shrugged. “Ah, see there? This week, see the falls; next week, back to refolding pup tents at the store. We’re just too different.”

  Jump the falls, his ass. She was a terrible liar. “See the falls?” Zak queried silkily, and raised an eyebrow as her laughing gaze met his.

  Zak ate the dense chocolate bar, glad to have it. For all he knew, Acadia, the pole dancer who wasn’t, had a six-course gourmet meal secreted somewhere on her. “Right. When you kids have finished flirting, we need to get mov—”

  He froze as all the ambient noise in the jungle suddenly ceased. Gideon and Acadia looked at him intently, Gid shifting quietly to get access to one of the handguns at his waist.

  Zak pointed, held up a hand for them to stay put, and went to investigate. He was in the mood to beat the shit out of someone.

  Marry me, Zak thought as he picked his way carefully back the way they’d come. Gideon had never been married. He thought it was all fluffy fucking clouds and roses. He thought once the “I do’s” had been said, the love just grew and deepened and it all became some magical fucking fairy tale and ended with happily ever after.

  Zak hated to disillusion his older brother, but real-life marriage wasn’t sprinkled with fairy dust.

  A wife would get under his skin. A wife designed to love the thrill of adventure as much as he and Gid did wouldn’t be able to help herself; she’d climb into his head and twist him around, make him doubt himself. Make him face himself, stare down mortality in a way that had nothing to do with extreme adrenaline and everything to do with his own helplessness as she died in some fucking war-torn country without him there to save her. Like Jennifer. Fuckit. Gid would find out if he survived. Right now, Zak needed to concentrate on that.

  The birds had stopped singing. Now the jungle was a silent wall of dripping, humid vegetation as every living creature lay low. This wasn’t your standard oh, shit, a jaguar silence. Humans were present. The jungle recognized the difference.

  And so did he. They weren’t even trying to be subtle.

  Two men shoved their way through the undergrowth, coming straight toward him. Pug Face and Shorty. Neither looked up to see him standing right there in their path, feet spread, Uzi held over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

  The men looked like shit. Pale and sweaty, and not too steady on their feet. Hardly a fair fight, but Zak wasn’t feeling particularly fair at that moment.

  They stood between him and a steak, a cold beer, a colder shower, and a clean, empty bed.

  Instead of ducking out of sight, Zak charged. He swung the metal stock of the Uzi at Pug Face like a club before the man saw it coming. The flat edge hit him head-on in the nose with a satisfying crunch and spurt of blood, and drove bone and cartilage through the soft tissues. Up into the guy’s brain. He dropped like a rock, dead before he hit the ground.

  Zak stepped over Pug Face’s prone body while Shorty was still fumbling to get his weapon in a position to fire. The electrical tape holding the grip assembly to the rear magazine well was firmly in place, but the ratchet on the bolt-retracting slide was giving him trouble in this humid heat. His sweat-slick, shaking hands tried to unlock the bolt so he could fire.

  At this close a range, just three feet, Zak knew a 9mm Parabellum round would make a sizable hole in him, if Shorty ever got his shit together. He flexed his knees. “That’s why I hate guns,” Zak told the man in colloquial Spanish, straightening his back. “Never ready when I’m ready. Now, this?” He bent from the hip socket. “This is ready.”

  Using a baseball grip on the sixteen-inch barrel of the machine gun, he swung it like a golf club. As every pro said, it was all about the follow-through. Golf was a boring-as-hell game, but Zak had found a more creative way to use his skill. Just as Shorty switched gears and pulled the Taurus from his belt, the stock of the Uzi slammed up into his chin, knocking him on his ass.

  A bullet discharged from the handgun and scared the crap out of a flock of red-and-green parrots, causing them to catapult through the treetops, shrieking and flapping their wings. Zak’s heart rate hadn’t elevated in the slightest. Maybe Jennifer had been right. He was dead, he just didn’t know it.

  Even when he staggered back in reaction to the bullet that slammed into his shoulder, he didn’t feel anything, emotionally or physically. But that round of fire was exactly what he’d been trying to fucking avoid. Might as well have sent up a here-I-am-come-and-get-me flare.

  SIX

  Zak picked up his shirt, which had dropped during the scuffle, shrugged it on and hastily did up the buttons, then hoisted the Uzi back onto his shoulder.

  Just in time; when he glanced up, Acadia and his brother stood waiting for him, and this time his heart did a little skip. Delayed reaction, he figured. He bent down to the first man to hide the blood already seeping into his shirtfront. He checked for pulses. Zip. “Both dead. Help me hide the bodies, then let’s get cracking. That round of fire will pinpoint our direction.”

  Surreptitiously he snatched the bandana from Shorty’s pocket. Christ only knew what kind of crap was on it, but it was better than nothing. He shoved it between his skin and his shirt. The webbed strap of the Uzi would keep it in place until he had time to see how bad it was.

  “Were you …?” Gideon indicated the blood on Zak’s shirt when he straightened.

  “Shorty’s nose. I’m fine.” No point worrying him. Zak had been shot before. It was going to hurt like hell soon enough, and whining wasn’t going to get the bullet out.

  Gideon helped him shove the bodies under a clump of dense foliage.
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  “We have to split up.” Gideon gave Zak a hard look as he straightened. “Yeah, they will keep following, but we’ll reduce the numbers if they have two trails to follow.”

  Zak didn’t need to see the color of Gideon’s skin to know he was in serious pain. “No. We stay together; safety in numbers.”

  “I’ll swing back, way back, cover your ass while you get Acadia to safety.”

  Gideon wasn’t listening. A common complaint Zak had about his brother. They were both strong-willed and stubborn, but Gid took the prize. “We don’t have time to debate this. Two now, more right behind them if our luck doesn’t hold. We stay together.”

  “We split up. Don’t waste time arguing, Zakary. I’ll travel faster by myself. We’ll meet up in what? Two days? Gran Meliá?”

  It did make a certain amount of sense. If both parties were uninjured. Fuckit. Gideon wasn’t going to budge from this. If he said they had to split up, no matter how fucking ridiculous it was, he wasn’t going to listen to any amount of logic.

  “You take her,” Zak ordered, resigned. “She’ll be safer with you. We’ll meet up at the Gran Meliá Hotel in two days, three at the m—”

  Gideon cut him off. “No.” He checked the clip in his sidearm, then glanced at Zak.

  Zak turned to look fully at his brother. “Of course she’ll be better off with you, Gideon. And you know it.”

  “Excuse me.” Acadia took a step forward. “I get a say in this.”

  Both men ignored her. This was an argument that had been simmering for two years. Gideon was dead wrong.

  “No,” Gideon repeated flatly. “I won’t take her with me. You’ll have to suspend your fucking death wish until you get her safely to Caracas.”

  Zak’s brain tangled at the thought of being alone with Acadia for even a moment. “Not that shit again, Gideon. Doesn’t matter how many times you say it, it isn’t true.”

  “For the last two years you’ve been doing everything in your power to join Jennifer. I won’t let that happen, and I’ve just about killed myself trying to keep you around. Take the girl to Caracas. Use the time to talk yourself out of doing anything more stupid than you have to.”

  In his peripheral vision, Zak saw Acadia’s gray eyes widen. God damn it.

  Gideon pressed on grimly. “I’ve watched you, Zak, and I’ve talked until I’m fucking blue in the face. I can’t seem to get through to you. You haven’t just enjoyed all the extreme shit we’re into; you’ve lived carelessly, irresponsibly, stupidly, and you’ve taken insane risks. You’ve done everything short of pulling a trigger on yourself. Maybe having to take care of someone else will remind you to live.”

  Zak’s fists clenched. “Same shit, different day. Already fucking proven I’m lousy at the job,” he snapped. “Want to risk her life to make your point?”

  “Three days. Consider it an early birthday present.”

  “I’d rather buy you that Bugatti Veyron.”

  “Yeah. I know. Get to Caracas alive, and maybe you’ll be able to do that, too.” Gideon clasped his shoulder. “Take care. See you in there.”

  “Gid, this is fucking insane, don’t—”

  Unlike Shorty, Gideon had the third safety off as he aimed the automatic at Zak’s chest. He stepped back. “I can help you out and end it for you here, or you can get Acadia back to safety. Your call.”

  Acadia didn’t move a muscle.

  Zak half laughed. “Jesus, Gid …”

  Gideon’s eyes, so much like his own, were hard and ice cold as he repeated, “Call it, Zakary.”

  A long, tense silence followed. Then, teeth clenched, Zak growled, “Fine.” Gideon wasn’t going to shoot him, no matter the provocation. But Zak didn’t want to exacerbate the already volatile situation. Gid was injured. A scuffle, however well intentioned, would hurt him.

  The muzzle lifted from his chest, shifted until it pointed safely at the ground. “Good,” Gideon said quietly.

  As he turned to go, Acadia stepped forward. “Wait a minute, here!” She pulled the stolen Uzi strap from her shoulder, rummaging in one of her many pockets with the other hand. “You can use this better than me,” she said quickly, “and here’s in case you, uh …” She hesitated as she pulled out a handful of magical mystery protein bars. “Protein will give you energy.” She glanced over at Zak. “I’m giving your brother the GPS. You have one on your watch, right?”

  “Yeah.” Zak wished he’d thought if it himself. On the other hand, Gid wouldn’t need a GPS if they all stuck together.

  Gideon accepted the handful of stuff Acadia handed him, shoving things into his pockets, then nodded at her, his smile quick, and Zak felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach when she smiled back. Gideon pushed off into the jungle, and for a long moment, all they heard was the rhythmic, muffled thwack! of his machete slicing and dicing foliage.

  “Fuckit,” Zak muttered.

  Acadia’s eyes were stormy as she spun to glare at him. “You tried to pawn me off on your brother?”

  “It wasn’t personal.” The idiot had broken ribs. How long did he—Double fuckit.

  “I slept with you,” Acadia said tightly, color high on her cheeks. “That’s pretty damned personal to me.”

  “He would’ve protected you better.”

  There were several beats of silence as she glanced at the wall of green where his brother had disappeared, then back at Zakary. “Too bad he wouldn’t have shot you.”

  She sounded pretty sure about that. “You don’t know my brother,” Zak told her, only half in jest.

  He’d never seen that expression on Gideon’s face before. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like knowing Gid was worried about him. Didn’t like that he’d been oblivious to that added layer of concern for years.

  Didn’t like—God damn it—that his brother might be right.

  She cocked her head, gaze steady. “Do you have a death wish?”

  Did not giving a shit if he was alive or dead count? “Why? You gonna make a run for it?”

  “No. Because two of us have a better chance of getting out of here alive than one,” she said tightly. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be sipping umbrella drinks with my friends right now. You got us into this freaking mess, you’d better get us out in one piece. At least now I have a heads-up. Let’s go.”

  Now he not only had to worry about Gideon out there, hurt and on his own without anyone to watch his back, but he had to make sure neither he nor Acadia croaked, just to prove a fucking point. Great.

  He started walking.

  “Hey!” She grabbed his wrist. Her pale, slender fingers looked incredibly fragile against his tanned skin. He could break those delicate bones without even trying. The fact that she believed he had a death wish, and still touched him, intrigued him.

  Worse, through miles of jungle trekking, through running, being chased, and God only knew what the hell else, he could still smell the faint delicate sweet musk of night-blooming jasmine rising from her skin.

  “Aren’t you going to bring the other Uzi?” She hung on with tenacity instead of brute strength. The hot pink of her flushed cheeks made her gray eyes seem almost translucent, and a stream of dappled sunlight from above lit her mussed blond hair into a halo.

  Zak yanked his hand out of her grasp and continued walking when he could, hacking and shoving aside vines when he couldn’t. “I don’t like guns.”

  “You don’t li—You shot that—”

  “Clubbed.”

  “That’s splitting hairs.” She sounded breathless as she trotted to keep up in a clear section that allowed him to pass through more quickly. “You couldn’t have taken out those men without it.”

  Leaves drifted to the lush ground around them. He glanced up to find three tiny black monkeys following them, swinging high above their heads, chattering as they leaped hand over hand from branch to branch. They weren’t scared of him either. Did he want Acadia Gray scared of him?

  Yeah, Zak realized, he sure as hell did. And had been
doing whatever he could to foster that attitude ever since he’d woken up that morning with a cockstand and a gun held to his head.

  He didn’t need a shrink to tell him it was because she had a fucking way of knocking small chinks out of the wall he’d built around himself. He could feel the drafts. She talked too damned much, and she saw too much with those soft eyes that missed nothing.

  She was like a fucking Weeble—he just couldn’t knock her down. And while he admired her for it, the trait annoyed him at the same time. “Warranted,” he told her, forging on. “Now our lives aren’t in imminent danger. No guns. This’ll do.” He held up the wicked-looking two-foot-long machete, realizing that far from working out his aggression on those two yahoos, he was now more pissed than ever.

  “I’m not crazy about guns either.” She came up beside him and threw him a wary look. “But Piñero and her men could still come after us any minute, and at least we could fire warning shots to hold them off. Or something.” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Can I at least go back for it?”

  Zak’s grip around her upper arm tightened as she pulled in the opposite direction. “Leave it.”

  “You are insane. They don’t mind guns and have plenty of them. We needed that. How are we going to protect ourselves?”

  “You have that.” He indicated the Taurus revolver stuck in her belt, then held up the machete. “I have this. Get the lead out. I want to beat my brother to Caracas.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “What? You don’t like honesty?”

  “That’s not honesty,” she told him, shaking her head until her messy ponytail swung. “Why do you always turn into a jerk again? Just as I start to like you.” She didn’t say it with any level of heat, but he believed her.

  And didn’t like that it bothered him.

  “You would’ve hated me eventually,” he said, gaze straight ahead. “I just saved you time.”

  She wasn’t easily intimidated, which was both damned irritating and, yeah, he allowed to himself, a little—just a little—intriguing. Shit. He didn’t want to be intrigued. He wanted out of this jungle, and wanted the gray-eyed tagalong out of his life for good.