The Heart of a Mercenary Read online

  And now that his reins of control had snapped, his appetite was savage. He couldn’t get enough. She moved invitingly against him, opening her mouth wider, challenging him, firing him with her own hunger. He grasped her breast, rasped his thumb over the thin fabric, found her nipple hard and tight. He groaned, moved his hand down over her stomach, cupped her between her legs. She slicked her tongue around his. She wanted him. Completely. And it made him wild with the need to consume her, totally, right now, right here, under the trees.

  He began to draw her down to the ground, his body acting without his mind. But as he did, a flare of logic cut through the blinding curtain of his desire. He hesitated. This wasn’t right. It had been wrong last night and it was still wrong, for all the same reasons. He pulled back, shocked at how his desire had blinded him, how it had completely consumed him like that.

  Sarah felt stunned, as if something had been ripped right out of her. She opened her mouth to ask him what had happened to make him stop wanting her…but she couldn’t. She couldn’t face the rejection. Not from him. Not now. Hurt and confusion welled through her. She looked away. This was ridiculous. She was being way too emotional about everything. But she couldn’t help it. Everything was coming out unfiltered. All her senses were heightened, everything coming straight from her gut and heart. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. She was stupid for even acting on her impulses. She should know better. Hadn’t she learned?

  He placed his hand gently against her cheek, tilted her face, forcing her to look back into his eyes. “Sarah.” His voice was hoarse, his lids thick, his breath heavy. “I…I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  She nodded, tried to look away.

  But he held her firm. “No, look at me, Sarah. I can’t do this to you because…because—” He jerked away, turned his back on her, dragged both his hands through his dark mop of hair. He stood still for a minute, then turned again to face her. There was a strange light in his eyes, almost a vulnerability, and his mouth was twisted in a kind of pain, as if he was trying to hold a tidal wave of stuff inside.

  It dawned on her slowly. This man hadn’t rejected her. He was fighting with something inside himself. He was hurting. The notion tugged gently at the nurturer in her. She touched his arm. “Hunter, it’s okay, really. I—”

  “No, damn it!” He raked his hand viciously through his hair. “It’s not okay.” He sucked in a deep breath, forced it out. “You’re special, Sarah, you’re…too damn special for me. I can’t do this to you. We…we’re too different.”

  She shook her head, bemused. “You said we were the same at the core, Hunter.”

  “I lied, okay?”

  She stared at him, speechless.

  “Look, Sarah, I can’t offer you anything. You were right, our lives are worlds apart. When we get out of here, I go on another mission. That’s what I do. You…you need—”

  She pressed her hand against his mouth. “Shut up,” she said softly, gazing right into his eyes. “I said it’s okay. And don’t try to tell me what I need. I’m not asking for promises, Hunter. Right now I’m just figuring out how to be in the present. I’m only just getting rid of my past. The future is more than I can deal with right now.” She paused. “You just do your job and get us out of here, okay?”

  He covered her hand with his, pressed it hard against the stubble on his face and closed his eyes. He remained like that for a while, as if drinking her in, as if finding his center again.

  When his eyes flashed open, the cold, controlled mercenary Hunter McBride was back. Sarah blinked. Had she even witnessed what she just thought she had? Had she actually seen through a chink in this man’s hardened armor and glimpsed something inside—an old-school guy, a gentleman who wouldn’t kiss her because he couldn’t promise her tomorrow?

  Something swelled so fast and sweetly sharp in her chest that in that instant, she thought she might just be in love with this man. He was everything she hadn’t expected.

  Hunter McBride was both a mercenary and a gentleman.

  11:01 Alpha. Congo-Cameroon border.

  Wednesday, September 24

  Andries Du Toit studied the black clouds massing along the horizon. There was a thunderstorm brewing. The air had that thick, electrical feel about it. He turned his eyes to the red haze of dust being raised by his troops moving north along the Congolese side of the border, then turned his attention back to his map, smoothing it out over the hood of his Jeep.

  “We should have this section of border covered by nightfall,” he said. “If they try and make it out of the Blacklands, they’ll have to cross somewhere between that point there on the Sangé and that point to the west.” He jabbed his finger at the map. “They won’t come around that way—that’s razorback mountain terrain.” He looked up at the militia leader in his employ. “Keep scanning all radio frequencies. The instant they try to make any kind of contact, we’ll have them. They do not escape the Congo, comprends?”

  “Oui, je comprend.”

  “Alert the rest of the People’s Militia and the rebel cadres in this entire region, lead them to believe you have reliable intel that President Samwetwe is being smuggled into Cameroon sometime within the next seventy-two hours. Suggest they capture anything that moves. What we don’t have covered, they will.” Du Toit glanced at the clouds again.

  “If we’re lucky, they’ll be found before they even get close to the border.”

  Chapter 13

  11:10 Alpha. Blacklands.

  Wednesday, September 24

  The forest canopy thinned and the vegetation turned to thick brush. The sun baked down on Sarah’s hair, her skin began to burn and her throat grew parched. They needed to find another water source soon. Hunter whacked at the leaves with his machete, his arms glistening with perspiration, his black hair damp over his brow. The muscles in Sarah’s forearm began to cramp from toting the awkward, heavy biohazard container. She tried to mesmerize herself with Hunter’s slashing motion, tried to ignore the burn in her thighs and calves, the deep ache in her shoulders.

  He stopped suddenly, breathing hard. “See that?” He pointed his machete blade at a strange pattern of herringbone scars cut into the bark of a tall, skinny tree. Below the scars the trunk had begun to grow over a rusted metal cup.

  “And that?” He pointed to another tree, same size, same pattern in the bark. Sarah began to notice more trees, all similar in size, spaced the same distance apart.

  “Rubber trees.” He wiped his wrist over his brow. “We’re about ten klicks farther north than I figured.”

  “And this is good?”

  He grinned. “This, Sarah, is an abandoned rubber plantation.” He waved his machete over the scrub. “Sangé River should be only a few hundred yards in that direction.” He took out his map, crouched down, spread it over his knee. “See, we’re here. The plantation runs up this way, along the banks of the Sangé. The farmers used the river to ship their product north—” he looked up at her “—right into Cameroon.”

  Nerves bit at her. “Are we still in the Blacklands?”

  “Just. The plantation lies along the edge of the Blacklands border.” He turned his attention back to the map. “From our most recent intel, there should be a mission station there—” he jabbed his finger on a bend in the Sangé “—run by two Italian priests.” He glanced up at her. “If we can secure a canoe from that mission, we can float into Cameroon tomorrow night under the cover of darkness.”

  Sarah swallowed. She had a sinking sense that her time with Hunter was almost over.

  He folded his map, slipped it back into his flak jacket and got to his feet. “We can rest up in the plantation buildings tonight. We should find food there—whatever they used to grow should still be growing wild. Then we move out of the Blacklands at dawn.” His eyes grew serious. “They’ll be expecting us to cross somewhere in this region, Sarah. Travel will be different, dangerous. Once we get to the Italian mission, we’ll lie low until dark.” He glanced up at a ridge of clouds massing along the
distant horizon. “And if that cloud continues to move in from the north, it’ll be in our favor. The night will be pitch-black.”

  They broke through coarse brush and moved onto the wide banks of the Sangé River just after noon. The water flowed slowly, cascading in places from rock pool to rock pool. Two hippos waded on the water’s edge, and a huge black-and-white bird with a down-curved beak flew with swooping movements over the surface. The water was such a welcome and life-affirming sight that Sarah slipped her hand into Hunter’s without thinking. He gave her fingers a squeeze.

  They rinsed off in the pools, filled the canteens and walked north along the riverbank in silence. Two fish eagles soared high above them on thermals of air. Sarah stopped to watch them, and couldn’t help noticing the bank of ominous clouds encroaching from the north, black and swollen with rain. It made her tense on some gut level. Even the air around her felt charged.

  Hunter must have sensed her growing apprehension because he smiled and pressed his index finger under her chin. “Hey, it’s just a thunderstorm, and it’s not going to arrive before nightfall. We can take shelter in the old plantation mansion.”

  But it wasn’t the rain she was worried about. It was more a sense of time leaking through her fingers, of reality creeping closer, of unspecified danger waiting for them beyond the Blacklands. Some weird part of her was not quite ready to leave this cursed region, to cross into Cameroon, to say goodbye to Hunter. They hadn’t been together that long but it had been intense, and it had the feel of forever. Emotion choked her throat as they resumed their trek along the shimmering white-hot sand. She told herself it was nothing. She was just tired.

  He stopped suddenly, drew her to his side, pointed downriver. “Look, there it is.”

  A large double-story structure rose out of a riot of glossy green vegetation at the curve of the riverbank. As they neared, Sarah could see black and red mold growing across what must have once been a white facade. Cerise bougainvillea scrambled up the walls, snaked along the lintels of glassless windows and exploded in a mass of color over the rusting tin roof. A stone veranda ran along the front of the house, and vines with white flowers tangled around stone columns. Banana palms and papayas grew in a thick grove along one side of the crumbling mansion in what must have once been a fruit and vegetable garden. Nature was devouring what had likely been an exotic home for some large colonial French family.

  “What happened?” she whispered in awe. “Where did the people go?”

  “Most colonialists fled the region when the Marxists took over,” said Hunter, studying the mansion. “But I reckon this plantation was abandoned during the last Ebola outbreak.”

  “You think they got the disease?”

  “My guess is they could no longer get people to come and work this massive plantation once the sorcerers declared the area cursed. They had no choice but to leave.” He took her hand. “Come, let’s go check it out.”

  Hunter led her up crumbling stone stairs flanked with clay pots bursting with weeds and flowers gone wild. The heady scent was almost overwhelming in the heat. Sarah could also smell the hot tin of the rusting roof and the underlying musk of decay.

  They stepped onto the floor of the veranda. It was scattered with leaves and twigs and dead flowers. A stone fireplace and large oven had been built into a wall at the far end. Whoever had lived here must have enjoyed outdoor cooking and entertaining. Sarah could almost imagine the family sitting out here on cane chairs, sipping cocktails, watching animals come to water in the Sangé as the sun dipped behind the trees. She could almost hear their distant voices speaking in French, the echoes of children laughing in the house.

  Hunter dumped his pack, and she jumped, her mind jerking back to the present. He carefully pulled open the creaking double doors that hung on rusted hinges. Sarah peered into the gloomy interior.

  Vines draped across the windows, blocking out sunlight. Her eyes adjusted slowly and she began to discern the shapes of a sofa, chairs, a table, odd bits of furniture covered in sheets and left behind. She stepped inside and cobweb curtains billowed in her wake. There was an overpowering smell of mold and rotting wood inside. A snake slithered through the leaves on the floor on the far side the room. Sarah jumped, her heart quickening.

  “Looks better out on the veranda, huh?”

  She nodded, almost overwhelmed by the sense that a family had once lived here, laughed here, cried here, made love here, had children here. And now the place was simply a husk permeated with a hollow sense of abandonment. It was, she realized with a jolt, that same hollowness that Josh had left in her when he’d walked out the door. She turned back to Hunter, suddenly needing to touch him, to feel his vitality, the security of his strength.

  A frown creased his brow. He lifted a strand of hair from her cheek. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “I’m fine.”

  His features relaxed. “How about you try and clean up the deck a bit, maybe gather some fruit—”

  “Excuse me?”

  He grinned. “—while I go catch us some fish. Equal division of labor, no chauvinism intended.”

  She laughed, suddenly grateful to be focusing on the present. “And just how are you going to catch fish?”

  A wicked gleam lit his eyes. He slipped his hunting knife out of its holster, pointed the blade toward the river. “See that tree hanging over the bank there, the one with the yellow fruit?”

  She squinted into the haze.

  “The locals call it a fishing tree. The fish wait under it until one of those yellow fruits drops off then…bam—” He crouched down in a blur of movement and lopped the pompoms off the back of her socks with his blade before she even realized what he was doing.

  “Hunter! What the—”

  He stood up, held the grubby yellow pompoms out in the palm of his hand, his eyes laughing. “Perfect lures once I get my hook into them.” He angled his head. “I knew you’d come in handy at some point, Burdett.”

  She scowled at him.

  He winked, closed his fist around her pompoms. And in that moment she had a warm sense of being part of a couple, the two of them at ease and comfortable with each other. It was a nice feeling—one she hadn’t had in more years than she could recall.

  Night had fallen thick and fast. The storm clouds had moved in, swallowed the stars and the small sliver of moon. Darkness was now complete, save for the roaring fire Hunter had built in the fireplace on the veranda. He’d lit it after the sun had gone down so no one would see their smoke, and he’d raked glowing coals over to one side to slowly roast the fish he’d cleaned by the river.

  They’d both washed in sweet water he’d managed to crank up from the old well on the property, and Sarah had swept the veranda with palm fronds. She’d laid out his hammock as a tarp and taken great pleasure in personally lopping off banana leaves with his machete to serve as plates for the fresh fruit and fish. She’d found fat candles in what was once the kitchen area of the mansion, and positioned them around the deck in a circle to ward off crawly things.

  A velvet breeze stirred as the storm closed in, making the candlelight quiver, and lifting the fragrance of the tropical night into the air. The smell of flowers mingled with the comforting scents of wood smoke and the coming rain.

  Sarah sighed, feeling utterly content. This was the most delicious meal she could ever remember, and although the night sounds of the jungle rose in a raucous crescendo across the river, she felt safe on the covered deck of the old house, with the fire and candles and Hunter and his gun at her side.

  She’d enjoyed cutting down the fruit, in spite of the snake she’d disturbed, and the spiders. Wielding the machete to provide for their dinner had empowered her in a way that had surprised her. And she’d taken great pleasure in cleaning off the veranda, arranging the candles and the slices of fruit on the banana leaves and putting a flower in her hair.

  It made her realize that while she’d come to this wild place to do good, to offer her help to ot
hers, to challenge herself in a new environment, she still really loved the simple pleasure of creating a beautiful home. It was a pleasure Josh had stolen from her, and it was the last thing she’d expected to rediscover in the heart of the cursed Congo jungle.

  “Fit for kings,” Hunter said as he leaned back on his elbow next to her, eyes on the fire. He was relaxed enough to have taken his boots off, and he was naked from the waist up. She studied his rugged profile, the hardened and scarred muscles of his torso, and smiled sadly. He was right when he’d said they were different, that they needed different things. While she was coming to the realization that what she really wanted, needed, was a home—a real home, full of love and warmth—Hunter McBride was just about the furthest thing from it. There was nothing mainstream about this man. He existed on the fringes of society, and she had a sense it was something no woman could take from him. This man could not be put in a container behind a picket fence. He belonged in untamed places like this.

  He caught her watching. He smiled, reached up and touched the flower tucked behind her ear. “Nice.”

  She smiled back, caught his hand in her own before he could move it away from her face. “This is your injured arm, Hunter.”

  He grinned. “Yeah. And it’s doing good, thanks to you.”

  She made a mock frown. “You never put that sling back on after you…fought with that soldier. You think I didn’t notice?”

  He moved a little closer to her. “So?”

  “You were just humoring me back in the clearing when you let me bandage you up, weren’t you? You wanted to give me a sense of purpose, a job.”

  “And you did it so well.” A mischievous light danced in his eyes. “Even though there was zero chance I could get my shirt back on.”