Page 13 of Her Reluctant Hero
Then there were the jungle animals.
“You better get a move on if you don’t want to be some animal’s breakfast.”
Instead of getting scared, she glared through narrowed eyes—a trick, really, given how big and round her eyes were.
“Breakfast, huh? There’s a concept.”
“Would you rather eat or be shot?” He waited, shifting his weight.
“Ah, the new Terror Diet.” She caught up in a few steps, her focus on her feet. “I saw something about it in Entertainment Weekly. If you stop to eat, you die. Based on the movieSpeed, I think they said.”
He scowled. “Can you eat and walk at the same time?”
She rolled her eyes. “I can barely breathe and walk at the same time.”
“Good to know your strengths.” Nonetheless, he dug an energy bar out of his pack, ripped it open and passed it to her.
She took a bite and her mouth twisted in distaste. Okay, so he’d given her one he didn’t like very much to see what she’d do. She didn’t disappoint.
“God, it tastes like something you scooped off the forest floor,” she said around the mouthful of bar, like she didn’t want any part of her mouth to touch it, lest she taste it.
“Sorry. No éclair-flavored energy bars.” Sure enough, she’d stopped walking. He backtracked to grab her arm and propel her forward. “But taste isn’t the point.”
She swallowed gamely—or maybe it was because he yanked her along, and swallowing was just a reflex. But no, she stopped and took another bite.
“Water?” she asked around the mouthful again.
“Finish that first.”
“It’s like sawdust.” Bits of bar flew out of her mouth with her words.
“I can’t have you wasting all the water washing it down.”
She sniffed. “It’s called a rainforest for a reason. In that it rains every day. Water from the sky.”
“I have no way to capture it, and no inclination to stop and try. We need to go up and try to get back in contact with the others.”
She swallowed again, with more effort. “Up? As in, the mountain?”
“Higher ground, at least.”
She looked back the way they’d come. “We left the rope.”
“We’re not going to climb. There’s bound to be a road, an easier way.”
“Easier,” she repeated, like he’d made a promise. “Okay.”
But she didn’t move any faster. Hell, even when he turned to help her, she moved like an old lady. Only when he heard her hiss of pain when her foot turned over did he realize what the problem was.
“Where did you get these boots?” He motioned to the footwear that was out of proportion to her body.
“I borrowed them.” She swiped the back of her wrist over her forehead. “I didn’t have clothes for this.”
“Who did you borrow them from?”
He inspected a fallen tree, looking for snakes or anything else that might be using the log as a hiding place. Tossing his pack down, he motioned her to sit. She looked at him warily, then did. He reached for the laces, but she drew her feet back, the quickest he’d seen her move in hours. For the first time he saw that her pants were too big as well, rolled at the hem and at the waist. She was tiny, and these were men’s clothes.
“Saldana’s clothes?” He squinted up at her.
