Ellie turned over so she could watch the stars through a crack in the tree line from her hammock. The storm had passed, leaving behind a trail of diamond-studded black sky. It reminded her of camping trips at Yosemite with her father. Hiking up to Glacier Point, with its incredible views of the valley and equally incredible views of the night sky. They’d gone every summer while she was still in high school and as often as they could despite their busy work schedules.
But now all of that had changed.
“Can’t sleep?” Ryan’s voice interrupted her thoughts from across the veranda.
“I’m exhausted, but the adrenaline’s still pumping and my mind won’t stop running.” She sat up, swung her feet around and planted them on the wooden floor. A moonbeam left a trace of light across his face from his hammock, illuminating his strong jawline. She’d never expected Ryan to become her anchor in the storm, but somehow that was exactly what he’d become.
“I understand.”
“I just can’t stop thinking about everything. My father. My aunt. Dr. Reynolds. I’m worried Yuri or the pirates might have found him. I know we need to leave, but what about the doctor? What if he’s in trouble?”
“Even after all that’s happened?” Ryan asked, sitting up.
She let the hammock rock slowly beneath her. “I know. It’s crazy, but I just can’t stop worrying.”
“Anything else bothering you?”
She struggled to put her emotions into words. “Sometimes—sometimes I miss my dad so much, it physically hurts. I keep thinking that all of this has to be some big mistake. That all I need to do is just wake up, and I’ll be sitting back in his house, watching football or cooking burgers on his grill. Except that’s never going to happen.”
He sat quietly, waiting, she presumed, for her to continue.
“So much has changed. Three months ago, I was negotiating usage rights for some of my artwork with a client, and today...I’m fighting for my life. Sometimes I don’t even know how I got here. All my friends think I’m dead. My father is dead. There’s a price out on my head. But right now, I’m just missing my father.” She drew in a slow breath, wishing she could settle her raw emotions. “When my mother died,” she continued, “she had been sick for so long, and to be honest, her death came as a relief. It wasn’t at all that I didn’t miss her or that the pain wasn’t real, but she was ready to go. But with my father... He ran a marathon three months before he died. I expected him to be around for a long, long time.”
Ryan leaned forward in his hammock and caught her gaze. “I’ve always enjoyed the stories my father told about the two of them starting back from when they were in college.” He let out a low laugh. “And don’t forget all the practical jokes they pulled on our moms.”
“Tried to pull,” she said, smiling at the reminders. “I’m pretty sure they always got caught.”
“I think you’re right.”
Her smile faded. “Do you know what’s been the hardest?”
Ryan shook his head.
“I’ve never had the chance to talk to anyone about my father and what happened that day.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the memories engulfed her. “I dream about what happened at night and relive the images during the day, and I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like that day is locked up inside of me and I can’t talk to anyone. I can’t tell them what happened or work through the loss, because no one can know why I’m here. The only person who’s known up until now is your father, and even he’s a continent away. The last time I saw him, he was whisking me out of the country.” She sucked in a breath of air. “Sometimes I just don’t know how to get through this.”
“There are no rules when it comes to grief. No right and wrong.”
“I know.”
“You can talk to me, Ellie. Tell me what happened.”
She nodded, knowing she needed to find a way to let out the pent-up emotions. She started to tell him what had happened that day in short, emotionless sentences. The moment she’d realized something was wrong. When she found her father. The other man who’d been in the room. The smell of fire engulfing her. Escaping from the house and running for her life.
“I ran outside and managed to call your father. He saved my life, arranging for me to disappear. There had been missing evidence and threats against my father that had included myself. He was convinced they were going to come after me as well. Especially since I’d seen the man who killed my father.”
“I’m so sorry for everything you’ve gone through.”
“I think one of the hardest parts is that I’ve hardly had time to grieve. I wasn’t able to go to his funeral. I never could visit his grave. I never really had the chance to say goodbye to him.”
Ryan came over and kneeled down in front of her so he was at eye level. “Ellie, we’re going to find a way to put an end to this. We’re going to get you to Manaus, where we can catch a plane to São Paulo and then out of the country. I’m going to keep you safe.”
Her eyes flooded with tears and the wall of emotion threatened to break and sweep over her like one of the waves from the river. “What if they find us? What if they find out Dr. Reynolds was helping me. I’m—I’m just so tired of running, but if anything happens to him...”
“You can’t stay. Not when there is a price on your head and when everyone is out looking for you. We both know it won’t be long until they find us again.”
“I know, but what about the doctor? He’s expecting us—”
“It’s too risky after everything we’ve just gone through. They’re not going to stop looking for us, which means we need to get out of here—somewhere safe—and the sooner, the better. We’ll figure out what to do about the doctor as soon as we’re far enough away that they can’t find us.”
She looked into his blue eyes and felt her heart tremor. He’d swept in and rescued her, and in the process had turned out to be nothing like the annoying teenager she remembered. Instead, she’d trusted him with her life. But that didn’t matter. There was no way she was going to let her heart get tangled up on top of everything else.
But the bottom line was a relationship between the two of them wasn’t going to work out. Her head knew that. They had little in common, and she certainly had no desire to get involved with someone who spent his time at the bottom of the ocean and was gone for months at a time. He liked the adventure, and as far as she was concerned, she was perfectly happy with takeout and a movie on a Friday night, or spending a quiet afternoon at an art gallery.
She brushed away an unwanted tear. “I’m sorry. For the most part, I’ve been able to just keep looking ahead, but now...”
“It’s normal. And you’re exhausted for starters. You need to sleep.”
“I know. Most of the time I’m strong. Mainly because I have to be. Then everything comes washing over me, and it’s like I’m there again.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, wishing she could stop the tears. “And a part of me keeps asking if it’s going to get better. When I’m going to stop crying at the drop of a hat and actually feel normal again.”
Or maybe normal was something she should stop looking for.
* * *
He took her hands in his, wishing he could fix everything for her. Wishing he could ignore the growing feelings he had toward her. Because everything seemed wrong. Especially the timing. He didn’t really know her anymore. Not really. What he did know, though, was while she saw herself as weak when she got emotional, he saw in her an amazing strength. She was willing to put the life of someone else above her own. And was willing to risk her own in the name of justice.
He ran his thumb across the back of her hand, surprised by the sudden surge of emotion by her nearness. And by the realization that he wanted to kiss her. Very badly. He reached up and brushed back her hair, aware that he was about to get his heart into trouble. Because while he might not have imagined falling for someone else, his fractured heart somehow felt whole when he was around her.
She looked up at him, eyes wide, but she didn’t pull away. He brushed his lips across hers, then felt her react to the kiss. A moment later, he pulled back and breathed in the subtle scent of vanilla and Diego’s homemade ant repellant. He let out a soft laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “We both smell like ant repellant.”
She matched his smile. “Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”
His mind shifted back to the kiss. “Did I overstep my bounds?”
She shrugged but didn’t look away. “I’m not sure yet. You came rushing in, saving the day like a knight on horseback, while everything I know is falling apart around me. To be honest, I’m struggling to know how to handle everything, including what I feel about you.”
“I understand, but for me, you’re not exactly that fourteen-year-old I liked to tease anymore. In fact, I’m feeling quite the opposite toward you.”
She laughed.
“But if it’s just me...” he continued, needing to hear he hadn’t totally misread the signals.
“It’s not just you. But with everything that’s happened, I can’t trust my emotions. I’m not even sure what I feel. We don’t even know if we’re going to get out of here alive. I feel like I’m on some roller-coaster ride and I can’t get off. Maybe when this is over. I don’t know.”
“We’re going to get out of here alive. I promise. And when we do, I think I just might ask you out on a proper date.”
“Don’t promise me things you can’t control, Ryan.” The hesitation was back in her eyes. “The authorities promised to keep my father safe after the threats he’d been receiving and now he’s dead. These men don’t play games. They play for keeps and somehow I—we—ended up in the middle of all of this.”
The moment they’d just shared faded into the humid night.
“I’m scared of how this is going to end,” she said.
“I know, but you’re also exhausted. You need some sleep. We’ll both feel better in the morning.”
Her gaze shifted to the forest beyond them. “I’m not sure I can close my eyes. If they come looking for us tonight, I want to see them coming.”
“Diego and his family promised to take turns keeping watch.”
Ellie stifled a yawn, the fatigue from the day beginning to consume her. “I guess you’re right, but you need to sleep as well.”
“I know. And I will. And, Ellie...we’ll find a way out of this. We have to. I really will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
He kissed her on the forehead, then moved back across the veranda to his hammock. A minute later she was lying down with her eyes closed. A sense of regret surfaced. He never should have mentioned how he felt. Not here. Not now. And she was right about another thing. He needed to sleep as well. But he had a feeling he’d dream about the beauty who’d somehow managed to capture his heart.
Ryan watched her until her breathing settled into an easy rhythm. The humidity was still heavy, but a breeze left over from the storm helped combat the heat. He could hear quiet voices talking from inside the house, and the river and sounds from the rain forest in the distance.
For the moment, they were safe, and that made him grateful for the family who’d agreed to take them in. But he also knew that word would travel fast and it wouldn’t be long until those after them tracked them down. Which meant they couldn’t stay here. They both needed to sleep, but before the sun rose in the morning, he wanted them as far away from here as possible.
A shadow appeared around the side of the house, then stopped a few feet from his hammock.
“Ryan?”
He squinted in the darkness. “Diego, is everything okay?”
The young man motioned him to the other side of the veranda, where they could talk without worrying about waking up Ellie.
“Is everything okay?” he asked again.
“Everything is fine, but...I need to talk to you about something.”
Ryan stared out at the thick forested area surrounding the small compound, still worried they might find them. “Okay.”
“I heard you talking about a doctor. Were you talking about Dr. Reynolds?”
Ryan hesitated with regard to the direction of the conversation and the wisdom of including Diego, but if they were going to get out of here, they were going to have to trust him.
“Ellie was planning to meet him. He had evidence on the man who killed her father, but we haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”
Diego nodded. “I know him. He is a good man who helps many of us. He spends one week every month at a clinic not far from here.”
“We’re worried that his life might be at risk,” Ryan said.
“We could find him and take him with us.”
Ryan shook his head. “We need to leave. Going and finding him would be dangerous and it would expose Ellie. We don’t think they know who we were planning to meet.”
“But if they do?” The young man stared at his shoes. “They kill people who get in the way. I’ve seen their bodies. Seen what they take. But most of all I’m tired of living in fear. Worried every day when I go out that the men who attacked me will return. Because next time, they might not leave me alive. Next time, they might hurt my family. I want to help stop them.”
“I understand, because so do I, but we have no weapons, no authorities involved...nothing. And at this point, we’re not even sure where the doctor is.”
“I know we can’t stop all of them, but they don’t hesitate to kill over fuel or a cell phone.”
“You have some kind of plan?” Ryan asked.
“The men who attacked me on the river, I’ve been following their boat for the past month. And I know where we can find them.”
“You’ve been following them?”
“Once the authorities came, I knew I needed proof of what they were doing. Proof of where their hideouts are. Proof that would allow the authorities to put Arias and his men away for a very long time. If they took the doctor...”
Diego pulled out the cell phone he’d borrowed from a friend and started flipping through photos he’d taken. “I watched them overpower the men on this boat, all for a shipment of ice and salt. I have proof of drug transactions, and an attack on a tourist boat. They work for a man named Arias.”
Ryan felt his jaw slacken. So he and Ellie had been right. Arias was behind the price on her head. “What do you know about him?”
“He’s the leader of the cartels and has been working in this area for about six months. They’re involved in all kinds of things. Drug running, extortion, raids... My family and the people of my village are all terrified to go out. I don’t want to keep living like this. This is why I want to help. He gives the orders.” Diego’s eyes narrowed. “You know about him?”
Ryan nodded. “He’s the one who ordered the hit on Ellie’s father.”
“If we’re going to catch the guys who killed her father—if all of this is going to end—we need all the evidence we can get.”
“But we’re not going after these men ourselves.” Ryan worked to weigh the pros and cons of going after the doctor. “I’ll talk with Ellie in the morning, but if we do go after the doctor, that’s all. We don’t confront these men. We’ll try to call him in the morning to find out where he is—first at the clinic—then after that we leave for the city together. Then leave the rest to the authorities.”
And in the meantime, he was going to do a lot of praying that the decision to go after the doctor didn’t backfire on them.