Escape From Desire. PENNY JORDAN
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behind I shall give your woman to my men. It is many weeks since they have had a woman. Our camp is remote, and our life there too spartan to attract women like yours.’
Tamara, who had gone ice-cold when she heard his threat, refused to look at Zach, too mortified by the guerrilla’s assumption to meet his eyes. Why didn’t he tell the other man the truth? That they were little more than strangers.
She knew the answer several seconds later, when, under the pretext of helping her up a steep incline, Zach muttered softly to her, ‘I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t the time for petty conventions. If I told them the truth I’d be condemning you to gang-rape. As long as they think you’re my woman they won’t touch you. Even among mercenaries there’s a certain code of ethics, and besides, they probably think that if any of them tried to touch you I’d react in the same way that they would in similar circumstances—kill with my bare hands,’ he elucidated grimly, ‘and none of them would want to be the one I took with me before they cut me in half with those neat little Russian toys they’re carrying!’
DARKNESS fell with the swiftness of a cloak, enveloping the forest in a heavy blackness that threatened to stifle Tamara. Its only mercy was that it obliterated the sight of the men guarding them, their guns never moving a fraction from their threatening positions.
With the fall of night came the rain; not rain such as she was used to at home, but an actual curtain of water which started without warning, and ceased fifteen minutes later, leaving them with their clothes plastered to their backs, and the track beneath their feet slimy with thick mud.
Tamara lost count of the number of times she stumbled; she had long ago lost track of time. At first she had tried to keep her spirits up by telling herself that soon the others would be back at the hotel; the alarm would be raised and they would be rescued, but she knew she was living in a fantasy world. It would take the others at least four hours to get back to the hotel, by which time they could be anywhere. The jungle seemed to press down upon her, tautening her nerves until she was ready to scream and run, heedless of what might happen.
As though he sensed how close she was to losing control, Zach grasped her arm. An hour or so before she would have bitterly resented the familiarity, but now she was helplessly grateful for it and its reminder that she was not completely alone.
‘Faster!’
The gun was cold against her flesh and she shuddered, almost losing her footing as she tried to hurry. At her side Zach increased his pace, the grip of his fingers biting into her arm, and she remembered that he was recovering from an accident and that George had told her that he limped slightly. The pace the guerrillas were setting was gruelling; Tamara ached in every muscle, even a simple activity like breathing was excruciatingly painful, but at her side Zach seemed to be completely unaffected—he wasn’t even breathing faster—unlike her.
She stumbled again as the path started to rise, sprawling almost full length, despite Zach’s attempts to save her. Above her she heard the unkind laughter of their captors, and weak tears flooded her eyes.
‘Get up!’
It was Zach speaking, his voice iron-hard and inflexible, cutting through her self-pity.
‘I can’t go any further,’ she protested wearily.
‘Oh yes, you can,’ he replied grimly, ‘and will—unless you want to be left here to die. These guys aren’t playing games, and they don’t make allowances. Now get up. I value my life even if you don’t value yours.’
He had spoken so quietly that Tamara had had difficulty in hearing him, his voice deliberately flattened to prevent the words from carrying, and once again she remembered his profession.
‘It’s all right for you,’ she protested bitterly. ‘I suppose you’re used to this. You …’ Her breath was cut off savagely as she was hauled to her feet and held against him, while his mouth came down on hers, almost depriving her of breath. Again she heard the men laughing, but this time in a different way.
It was only seconds before Zach released her from what hadn’t been a kiss at all really, more a harsh punishment, her lips bruised from the abrasive pressure of his, her nostrils full of the musky male scent of him. Just before he stepped away from her, he gritted furiously, ‘You little fool! Any more cracks like that and we’ll both be dead, understand?’
Too late, she did, all too well, and as she walked on on shaky legs, couldn’t stop herself from visualising what might have happened had any of the guerrillas guessed what she was going to say. The information that Zach was connected with the British Army, in no matter how nebulous a fashion, was bound to provoke an unpleasant reaction.
Half blinded by tears, sick and shaking, Tamara forced herself to go on, not knowing who she hated the most, Zachary Fletcher or the guerrillas.
How long they walked along that narrow winding track which she felt sure must be circling the mountains instead of climbing them Tamara didn’t know; she only knew that the physical effort of simply putting one foot in front of the other was a greater ordeal than anything she had experienced in her life; there was no room for thought, or even fear, only the sheer physical necessity of keeping going.
The sporadic downpours of rain were something she had become accustomed to, like the soaking clothes plastered to her skin and the discomfort of walking in wet shoes. As they brushed past trees and through dense undergrowth, so thick in places that it almost obscured the trail, Tamara felt as though she had strayed into a horrendous nightmare of the sort where, during her childhood, she had been forced into headlong flight, pursued through the gnarled and tangled blackness of a forest by some nameless but terrifying oppressor.
A damp tangle of leaves brushed her skin and she felt a momentary sharp pain, but her brain was too weary, too involved in the process of simply walking, to register more than faint surprise. It was only later when yet another of the huge moths which seemed to infest the forest flew in front of her face and Tamara raised her arm that she realised what had happened, her whole body stiffening in primeval fear and horror so that Zach, who had been walking behind her, cannoned straight into her.
His ‘What’s the matter?’ turned into a small sound of understanding as his fingers circled her wrist with hard warmth and found the alien body of the huge leech which had attached itself to Tamara’s soft flesh.
Her scream was suppressed instinctively, her eyes closing in childish reaction to blot out the sight of the pulsing body of the leech as it clung to her arm.
‘Move!’
This time Zach ignored the harsh command, forcing the guerrilla leader to drop back to see why they had stopped.
‘Your flesh is tender and more to their liking than ours,’ he commented when he saw what had happened. ‘Here.’ He tossed Zach a box of matches and asked laconically, ‘Do you know what to do?’
‘I think so.’ Calmly Zach struck one of the matches and applied the flame to the body of the leech. Tamara watched in dazed horror as the bloodsucker shrivelled and dropped to the ground. Her body was trembling so much she could barely stand, shock waves of reaction flooding over her, drowning out everything but her revulsion for what had just happened.
‘Walk!’
The gun thrust into her side reminded her of her surroundings, and obediently she started to move slowly along the trail. They must have come miles. What time was it? She wasn’t wearing a watch and found it impossible to calculate the length of time that had passed since their capture.
The higher they climbed the less dense the vegetation became; although it was still thick enough to provide a thick scree to cover the steep slope they were ascending. Tamara could remember reading in her holiday brochure that because of the climate even the tops of the mountains were covered in heavy foliage, and the more time went on the more she came to realise the implausibility of them being rescued quickly.
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