Uncaged Love, page 18
“This side. Popayán is on the Southwest side of the Cauca.” His voice was cool and collected.
“You sure? Don’t they have piranha and crocodiles here?” Harper didn’t care much for the wildlife in Colombia. Too many things could kill, and humans weren’t necessarily at the top of the food chain. “I don’t need an up-close-and-personal encounter while trying to cross the river.”
“I’m sure, babe.” There was a chuckle in Rafe’s voice. It was as if he’d read her mind. They worked well together.
The chopper lost altitude. Harper knew he had to power in, and engines sucked down fuel fast. Unlike airplanes, choppers didn’t drift—they dropped.
“One o’clock. There’s a small field. It looks silver in the moonlight.” It was rimmed on two sides by trees, the third by the river. Three small buildings were tucked into the corner of the fourth side.
“That’ll work just fine. Thanks, babe.” Rafe pushed the machine, which grew heavier every second. He came in low over the river and lost the tail rotor. The rear started to swing around.
“Don’t you dare, you big old bitch!” He cut the overhead rotors so they would auto-rotate the last few feet to the ground. As the chopper tail tried to make a complete circle, the skids thunked on the ground. The right skid caught, and the chopper tried to flip. It bounced hard, but remained upright.
“Follow me and stay close,” he ordered and jumped out his door. He pulled the KRISS K-10 to his shoulder and swept the area over its sights.
Harper came up beside him, rifle to her shoulder, and used the infrared scope to search for approaching people.
“Clear. Run!” She ordered.
They zigzagged across the field of knee-high plants, keeping at least twenty feet apart. When they reached the tree line, they continued for ten yards before crouching at the base of a huge tree.
They once again scoped the area. “Clear and safe,” he declared.
Harper took a deep breath and leaned against the tree then jerked to standing.
“Up.” She couldn’t hide the hint of fright in her voice.
“Are you all right?” Rafe’s apprehension radiated from him.
Prickles—or were they tickles?—ran down her spine from his nearness. His sincere concern for her demolished some of the walls she’d built around her heart.
“Hell no.” She shuddered. “There are anacondas in this goddamned jungle. The small ones are twenty feet long and weigh over three hundred pounds. I hate snakes.”
“There are also jaguars.” He swept the rifle upward. “While I was with the SEALs, we dropped in the other side of the Occidental Centrals and had to hike through a really dense jungle before we hid out for a week just watching this guerrilla camp. My buddy, Doc, decided to sleep under a tree, and when he woke up, there was a two hundred and fifty pound jaguar napping just above his head. It’s always a good idea to look up. Sorry I didn’t think of it first.”
Rafe scanned the branches above them for wildlife. “We’re good,” he finally announced.
Harper plotted on her GPS with a frown. A straight line through the jungle meant hours of hacking and whacking at the fast-growing vegetation for each mile gained. The river wound its way leisurely down toward the ocean, but they needed to travel upstream against several sets of class three and four rapids. She smiled at the thought of running it in a kayak.
“Good news?” Rafe asked, encouraged.
“No, it seems I’m always headed the wrong way.” She pointed to her GPS screen. “These would be a blast to run in a kayak, but we need to move upstream, against nature. It’s never easy.”
“We could boat our way up to this point then cut across the jungle here.” He ran a finger across her screen. He was standing so close, her whole right side felt the heat from his nearness.
His hand lightly brushed over hers. The jolt was electric, and she startled. He must have felt it too because his gaze met hers and held. In that moment, she remembered his tender touch in the soft sheets at La Comunidad only a few hours ago. How he’d brought her to completion so easily. He seemed to know her body and exactly what it needed. She wished they could have stayed there instead of running for their lives, chased through the Colombian night.
Rafe’s eyes softened in the light of the tiny illuminated GPS. He reached up and cupped her cheek, his fingers sliding through her hair, and pulled her to him. The kiss was soft, gentle. Adrenalin pushed through her veins, but she needed this tenderness, and he seemed to know it.
He pulled back and stroked his callused thumb over her cheek. “I’m sorry we were interrupted and torn from the bed. I wasn’t finished exploring your gorgeous body. Hell, I’d barely gotten started. I promise, when this is over and we’re safe, we’ll finish what we started. It may take days before I’ve made love to you all the ways I want you.”
Just the thought of days in bed with him and the ways she wanted Rafe made her ache between her legs. If he touched her right at that moment, she’d explode within seconds.
Harper guided his face to her and kissed him hard, forcing his mouth to open to her. She shoved her tongue inside and tasted his need. He tangled his tongue with hers and thrust into her mouth, the way she wanted him inside her, much lower. He rocked his hips, and she felt him harden against her.
Snap.
Every muscle in her body froze. Bushes rustled about twenty feet away. With an efficiency of movement, Rafe stepped back and yanked the rifle to his shoulder, head tilted into the stock for optimum vision through the scope. Harper fumbled slightly and had her rifle up as well.
He snickered.
“We have an audience. Monkeys.” He pointed.
Harper looked through the IFR mode of her scope. Six or seven small bodies with red and yellow heat signatures sat in a perfect row staring back at her. She couldn’t hold in her giggle.
“We were about to show them how humans have hot monkey sex,” Rafe teased. “I wonder if they’d learn anything.”
“You’re bad, you know that?” She swatted at his arm.
“No, I’m actually very good, but you know that.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek as he ran his free hand over her bottom then smacked it lightly. “Let’s move. It’ll be light soon.”
Harper took a deep breath and clicked the GPS back on. “You’re right.”
Rafe pointed toward the far end of the field. “We’ve got company interested in the chopper.”
Two men approached the field where the downed helicopter sat glinting in the moonlight. Their stance was curious, not military trained, as they pointed at the helo. Their white shirts shone brightly in the night, opposed to her and Rafe’s own black camouflage.
“How many?” Harper asked.
“Only two,” Rafe replied.
Harper made a command decision.
“I’ve got this. Cover me.” She stood and boldly walked out of the woods toward the two men. She removed the black watch cap that secured her hair. Her gold highlights glittered in the pale light of the moon. She wiped the black and gray paint from her camouflaged face with the black handkerchief she kept in her back pocket.
She took off her black shirt and tied it around her waist as she crossed the field. She wanted them to see her tank top and bare arms, to be sure they saw her as a woman.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Harper called in her best Spanish to the two men who stood beside the field she was quickly crossing with determined strides. She knew she was safe because Rafe remained hiding in the woods and would continue to scan the surrounding area for any threats.
The two shacks from which they had emerged were typical of indigent residents, slapped together to protect them from the heat of the day and creatures of the night.
She smiled and spoke loud enough for them to hear since she was still fifty feet away, “I’m sorry our helicopter crashed and ruined your field. In payment, we give it to you.” She and Rafe didn’t need that chopper anymore, and Narváez wouldn’t ever use it again.
These were simple farmers, eking out a bare existence. Their fields were planted for food for their families to consume, not cocaine. They looked like father and son.
She moved closer to them as they silently stared at her. “Well, hell,” Harper said, wondering if they hadn’t understood her Spanish. In this part of Colombia, many spoke dialects far older than the country itself.
The boyish one smiled, eyes growing wide. “You’re American? Tourista?”
“Yes,” Harper lied easily, seeing his exuberance for international travelers literally dropping in on them. “We need a boat. Do you have one?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The young man gave her a hopeful smile as he looked at the helicopter. “The boat, it’s not big, but it doesn’t leak.”
The older man smacked him on the back of head and mumbled.
“It leaks a little,” he admitted. His large brown eyes were apologetic but turned hungry as his gaze stole back to the chopper.
They needed the boat so Harper offered, “You can have it. There are many good parts on the helicopter. It has a strong engine, compressors, many items you can salvage. That should cover the cost of your boat. I’ll leave it several miles upriver. I don’t want to keep it.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The older man tentatively held out his hand. Maybe he was afraid to touch her. Harper smiled warmly and took his hand in both of hers. These men were short compared to the men she knew and very thin with lean working man’s muscles, not like the gym-pumped men at the ATF.
She turned toward the trees and signaled for Rafe to join her.
Looking back at the older man, she asked, “What danger will we find up river?”
The older man smiled. “How far do you go?”
She ignored his question and asked, “Do guerrillas control the river? Who is their leader?”
“Yes, often I see them when we fish, but they know me and don’t bother with my family. We are too poor for them. We trade fresh vegetables, and they bring my wife cloth sometimes.”
“Thank you. You are very kind.” She watched their eyes climb upward and fear cross their faces.
She could feel Rafe, his growing presence, as he walked up behind her. She didn’t need to look to know he was there. He was so familiar now.
“Would you please show my friend to your boat?” she asked in a gentle voice, hoping to reassure the older man, who then ordered the boy to take them to the river.
Rafe told the older man, “We were never here. You never saw us. Sicarios from the other side of the mountain crashed that helicopter and said you could have it for parts before they headed on foot to the highway.” He pointed toward the looming Cordillera Occidental range and in the general direction of the road.
With short nods of his head, the old man agreed.
Rafe added in a more gentle tone, “We have to keep my woman safe.” He put his arm around Harper possessively and switched to English when he whispered in her ear, “It’ll be dawn soon. We need to move.”
All she could think about was his arm around her. It felt so right. His heat warmed her all the way to her heart.
No, she couldn’t go there. She wouldn’t let a man into her heart. She’d been a pillar of strength for so many years, fighting her way through life alone. The mere thought of sharing the burden with someone else was an enticing invitation, but she knew how that ended.
Rafe and Harper followed the farmers to the river where they all looked down the steep bank at the small flat-bottomed boat that currently held two inches of water. It was two feet across at its widest point and looked like a tiny barge had mated with a canoe. The front was pointed, but the back was squared. A single board crossed in the middle area, created a seat. The paddles were new and plastic though.
Harper wasn’t sure if both she and Rafe would fit. It would be a miracle if the boat didn’t sink under their combined weight. Neither was small by anyone’s standard.
“It doesn’t have much of a keel,” Rafe noted.
Harper beseeched the older man, “I hate to ask this of you, but is there another boat?”
“We only have the one.” The boy shrugged, then lit up. “The men down the river have a big motor boat. Very loud. Very fast. It can even go through the rapids.”
Harper smiled at the small, disheveled man. “How far down?”
“Two bends.” Maybe this little thing could get them that far.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely to the weather-worn man. “You should strip the helicopter immediately and drag it into the woods before the guerrillas see it and start asking questions.” Harper glanced toward the chopper then at the plowed and planted fields. She caught sight of an antiquated tractor and hoped it was powerful enough to drag the crashed bird away before anyone saw it.
Rafe looked at her. “Let’s go steal a motor boat.”
Chapter 21
Rafe contemplated the small leaky boat and frowned. He motioned toward the wet wooden hull. “Sorry, babe, but it’d work best if you’d put that pretty little ass of yours on the floor in the middle. Your lower center of gravity will stabilize what little keel is there.”
“Let’s dump the water out first, please?” Harper begged.
Rafe didn’t blame her. The bottom of the craft looked disgusting and smelled worse. He motioned for the younger man to help, and together, the three of them lifted the small boat. “Christ, this thing’s heavy as hell,” Rafe complained.
“But making me happy is worth it.” Harper’s smile lit up the night. And his world. Yes, making Harper happy was high on his list.
Once righted, Harper planted her butt on the bottom of the boat and faced forward, legs crossed. Rafe crouched as he stepped into the boat and went to his knees. If she leaned back, she’d be against his crotch. His cock twitched. Don’t go there. Keep your head in the game. We’re a long way from safe.
Rafe used the paddle and pushed off from the black muddy bank. The powerboat was downriver so he maneuvered into the swift, tea-colored river. Dawn was only about an hour away. The swiftly moving water glinted now and again from reflected starlight, as if someone had thrown a handful of tiny diamonds onto undulating black satin.
Rivers were so different from the ocean waters he’d grown up on and trained in as a SEAL. Luckily, he’d done a little kayaking in college.
Harper was so close he could feel the heat from her back on his thighs. When he bent to dig into the water for a deep stroke, his chest came so very close to her head. He imagined taking her from behind, pumping into her from the back. His erection pushed against his zipper. He readjusted his position on the board but found little relief. Every time he leaned forward to dip the paddle into the water, he could smell her hair, her body, the unique scent that was Harper. He wanted her, again.
The sky slowly turned from black to deep purple-gray as they came around the second bend. The river widened to more than one hundred feet across.
Just as the native had said, ahead on the right sat a bright yellow fiberglass boat run up onto a sand bar. It was at least fifteen feet wide, very tall in the back, and about twenty-five feet long.
“How the hell are we supposed to drive that huge thing up the shallow river?” Rafe asked.
“At screaming speeds.” Harper smiled. “It’s a New Zealand-designed river runner with a draft of only five inches and powerful engines made for speed. The wide body stabilizes the boat in sharp curves. It was built to run twelve tourists at fifty miles per hour through the Shotover Canyon with a zero-turn radius.” She grinned at him.
“You seem to know a lot about it. Have you ever driven one of these?” Rafe’s boating experience was limited to sailing yachts on the ocean, riding in rigid inflatables as a SEAL, and the little rodeo-kayaks on Virginia rivers. He’d never imagined a big boat like this one on a river that was no deeper than his waist in most places.
“No. My team was training in the Idaho mountains along the Snake River, and afterward, we played tourist. We rode one of those through Hell’s Canyon. What a wild ride.” Harper’s eyes lit with excitement.
Damn, she was so beautiful.
“Got any idea how we’re gonna steal it?”
“If I remember right, the controls are on the front left side. I should be able to hot-wire it, and we’ll be on our way within minutes,” she offered.
“We need to move fast.” Rafe said looking at the sky. “The sun will be up within thirty minutes.”
“I wish we knew how many were in camp,” Harper said. “I could sneak through the jungle and get a head count.”
“No, it doesn’t matter how many. We’ll handle whatever happens.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll paddle quietly to the far side of the big boat, and we’ll climb in next to the controls. I’ll establish lines of fire, and you get it started. We should be out of here before anyone knows we’ve been there.”
Rafe quickly paddled the old leaking dinghy onto the sand bar beside the shiny new speedboat. He and Harper slipped soundlessly onto the deck.
As Rafe swept the area with the IFR setting on his scope, Harper crawled under the steering column. He counted seven asleep in tents and two walking the perimeter at the tree line. Good thing they weren’t concerned with a water approach.
Harper popped her head out from under the dash. In a backstage voice, she said, “Rafe, press the start button.”
Confident he knew where all the bad guys were, he looked down and found the red button. Thankfully, the powerful engines growled to life almost instantly.
Rafe barely heard the yelling from the far side of the guerrilla camp, but when the gunfire started, he threw the boat into reverse.
Harper rolled into his shins as they jerked off the sand bar. Then, he over-steered and flung her to the right.
He heard a thud.
“Damn it, Rafe, give a girl a little warning.”
“Sorry, this thing is really reactive. Stay down and hang on.” He nudged the steering wheel slightly to test the response, and the boat moved several degrees. He corrected his course as he rounded the bend, leaving the boat’s former owners shouting as they popped out of their tents like prairie dogs.
