Page 30 of Hot Intent

“I feel itchy,” she declared.

“That’s the sand in your clothes. We need to preserve the supplies we have. I have no idea how long we’ll be here or what we’ll find when we get to where we’re going.”

“Do you know exactly where that will be?” she asked in resignation.

“Nope.”

He took his bearings using his cell phone, and then backtracked cautiously to a side road they’d passed a few minutes earlier. No telling if there were more military patrols out hunting for them or not. She rather thought that they would still be out here.

She stared up the narrow track that disappeared into the darkness. “You’re seriously going to just head off into the jungle?” she asked in dismay.

“There are fresh tire tracks on this road. It’s passable for at least a while.”

Well,thatwas encouraging. This “road” of his looked like a pair of bad ruts and not much more. Her certainty that he was torturing her on purpose mounted as they hiked up into the hills.

Thick cloud cover obscured any stars or moonlight, and with power out for many miles in every direction, there was no light pollution to break through the total blackness of the night.

She’d experienced darkness this thick and impenetrable once before, the night she, Dawn, and Alex had run for their lives in a remote mountain region on the other side of the world. She’d been terrified then, and she wasn’t much less terrified now.

The “road” did, in fact, hold up for several miles. But then, they hit a patch where, as far ahead as Alex’s high-powered flashlight could reach, nothing but downed trees were visible.

“End of the road,” he muttered.

“How far to wherever we’re headed?”

“Far enough that it’s time for us to make camp and get a little rest before we finish the hike.”

Oh, God. She watched in dismay as Alex moved off into the debris field. She followed glumly and helped him spread out a tarp on a tiny patch of relatively bare ground. They spread another tarp over a downed tree limb lying several feet above the first tarp. They laid shredded banana leaves they pulled from the debris in a shingle pattern over the shelter to help it shed water, and then they covered the whole shelter with brush to camouflage it from prying eyes.

She crawled into the low tent and Alex followed suit. She muttered, “Did I ever mention I hate camping?”

“I got that memo the first time you went looking for an electrical outlet in a cave in Zaghastan so you could blow dry your hair.”

“I did not look for an outlet! I merely complained that there wasn’t one.”

“I rest my case,” he murmured.

“Just tell me there aren’t ginormous snakes crawling around all over the place out here.”

“There aren’t ginormous snakes crawling around all over the place out here.”

“Is that the truth?”

He snorted. “Of course not. The locals’ name for the Cuban boa constrictor ismaja. They’re native to these jungles. Not the biggest snakes on Earth, but they’re aggressive.”

“Oh my God.”

“Get some sleep, Katie.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

He merely offered his arm for a pillow, and she couldn’t maintain enough ire to turn him down. She was exhausted by all this Jane of the Jungle stuff.

She wasn’t sure if it was the deafening cicadas outside or the steam heat inside the tent that woke her up, but either way, she roused to green light and the sticky discomfort of sand and sweat on her skin. She rolled over and suppressed a groan. Her body ached from head to foot. Her Pilates instructor was going to be so disappointed.

“Alex?” she called quietly.

“I’m here.”

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