Proposition: Marriage. Eileen Wilks
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were nearer—much nearer. He tugged her down with him, so that they lay flat on their stomachs. She felt giddy, her breath coming fast and shallow. He scooted forward, so she did, too, and she saw why he’d chosen this spot Here, the shadows of the trees fell over them, dense and concealing. They could peer through the cover offered by the weeds, but no one below would be able to see them—not as long as they were still.
Jane knew she could hold still. She’d proved that much in the lake. This should be easier. She had dry ground beneath her, and his warm body beside her. Unfortunately, his body was every bit as distracting as the monster bug had been—but in a different way.
She stared down at the little trickle of a stream, her muscles tight with fear and the need for stillness. Two men came into view. They wore uniforms, familiar uniforms that made Jane go limp with relief. These were federales, members of the semimilitary national police. The cops, she thought, giddy with regained safety. The good guys. She started to turn to John, to tell him they were safe, but her head never finished the motion.
His hand clamped over her mouth. Again. She jolted, then glared at him out of the corner of her eye.
He brought his mouth next to her ear, as he had before. “Shh. Look before you leap, Jane. An isolated squad of soldiers may not be a safe escort for a woman alone,” he breathed. Slowly he removed his hand from her mouth.
Below them, three more of the national police moved into view. She frowned, confused, and watched. The men in the little gully weren’t a reassuring sight. They were dirty and unshaven and they slouched along, weapons at the ready, joking with each other or snarling complaints. They didn’t act very military. One of them said something that made her think they were looking for something.
Or someone.
No one would have mounted a search for her—not this quickly. She glanced at the man beside her. They lay so close together on the ground that she could smell him. The faint, welcoming note of human warmth was almost lost in the earthy odor of the humus covering the forest floor beneath them. Silently she mouthed, “Who are they looking for?”
His gaze met hers. His lips smiled, but those vastly blue eyes of his were cold. He brought his mouth close again m that disconcerting simulation of a lover’s approach, so that his voice was a puff of barely heard words on her skin. “Me. So if you’re tired of my company, sweet Jane, all you have to do is attract their attention.”
The authorities were after him? She jerked—not much; just one quick, involuntary motion away from a man who might be the criminal she didn’t believe him to be.
A pebble rolled down the hill.
She froze in horror.
At first she thought it would be all right. Then one of the men said something, pointing in their direction. A couple of them stopped and peered upward. One chided the others for being jumpy, and the first man defended himself angrily. A fourth man—maybe he was a sergeant or an officer; he had a cleaner uniform—came back to see what the argument was about.
The man beside her stiffened. She turned her head slowly.
He wasn’t looking at her. Or at the federales. A bead of sweat trickled slowly down his temple as he stared at his left hand, the one farthest from her.
A snake slithered slowly across his outspread hand.
It paused, a pretty creature a little more than a foot long, the green, scaly body crossed by narrow white bands. It looked like a chubby green rope. Jane tried telling herself that short, chubby snakes weren’t as scary as long, sleek ones, but fear sucked her brain empty, and the thought wouldn’t stick.
The snake raised its flat, lance-shaped head, opened its mouth and tasted the air with rapid flicks of its tongue.
Only inches separated the snake’s mouth from John’s face.
Panic crawled over her like a swarm of ants. She wanted to move—wanted it with a twitchy physical craving she’d never known before—but if she moved, if she even breathed too hard, the snake might bite John. She had managed to stay still with that bug on her. She could do this. She had to, or it would bite him and he would die. Right there beside her he would die, and it would be all her fault.
She told herself desperately that most snakes weren’t venomous. John was holding very, very still, so maybe he didn’t know this. She wasn’t sure he was even breathing.
The snake lowered its head and moved forward. Over John’s hand. Across the ground. And straight toward Jane’s hand.
She thought she’d faint.
It sampled the air near her clenched fist. When had she closed her fingers up tight like that? Now she couldn’t relax them. She thought furiously “vegetable” thoughts at the snake: I am a green, leafy plant. I am warm from the sun, not from blood. You can’t eat me. I am a green, leafy plant....
The snake’s tongue flicked over her skin. She stopped breathing. Her vision dimmed.
But she didn’t move.
The snake turned away from her hand and slithered casually on into the thicket.
She watched as it slid through the grass, heading slowly downhill. Her chest hurt. She remembered to breathe, which helped. She wondered if the snake would go all the way down to the gully and bite one of the soldiers.
The second the snake vanished from sight, she felt a hand on hers.
This time, she didn’t jump. She turned her head.
John nodded once. What is that supposed to mean? she wondered hysterically. Hello? How are you today? Seen any good snakes lately? Then he started inching backward on his stomach. Alarmed, she glanced down and saw that while they’d been occupied—literally—by the snake, the soldiers had moved along the gully and out of sight.
She was more than ready to follow her rescuer’s lead this time.
They inched backward until they could stand. As soon as she was on her feet he took her hand again.
They ran hand in hand down one of the trails, him ahead, her behind, and no doubt he was fully in control of himself and had sound, logical reasons for making such a speedy escape. Jane ran because it felt so damned good to run. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to see another bug or soldier or slithery green snake ever again--or any part of a forest, either. But the forest was all around them, and no matter how hard they ran, she couldn’t get away from it.
He slowed and stopped, pulling her off the trail with him into a small, sun-dappled spot, a patch of ground where some mystery of the soil had caused the trees and underbrush to thin. There was enough sunlight for a bit of grass to spread itself out. Scraps of blue showed through overhead, laced by the leaves of the few branches that arced above the pocketsize clearing.
“I’m not tired,” Jane said, gasping for breath and clutching her side. “I can keep going.”
“Hey.” He turned her to face him. “It’s all right. We’re far enough away from them now.” He took her other hand in his, too, and smiled at her.
“I—I—” She couldn’t catch her breath. He wasn’t winded, damn him, and his ponytail was still neat. “I hate snakes!” she exclaimed. “I hate snakes, I really do. I just hate them, but I couldn’t move. At first it would have bit you and then it would have bit me, but I—I—” Her breath caught in a hiccup that was perilously close to a sob.
“I know,” he said, and pulled her up against him and put his arms around her. “You hate snakes.”
He was warm and solid and she clutched at him, delirious from lack of oxygen. “I know you’re not laughing at me,” she told him. “Because if you were, I’d have to kill you, and I don’t have my breath back yet.”
“I’m not laughing,” he assured her, and his hand stroked down her back. “You did good back there. Real good. I thought I was dead. I would have been, if you’d startled the snake. You saved my life by keeping