"Lucas?" She pivoted, toppling back to fall on her butt.
Not the sort of reaction he'd been looking for, but they were all on edge. He should have remembered that. Plus she'd had five years of watching her back. The reaction came close to a PTSD move.
Except what was up with the guilty expression on her face? And why were both her hands tucked behind her back?
All those instincts he trusted blared to life. Something was off.
He squeezed her shoulder gently, sensitivity not his long suit, but he knew how to listen. "Is something wrong?"
"You startled me."
"Really? What's that you're hiding behind your back?"
She laughed. Tight. High-pitched. She brought one hand around, a peppermint in her fist. "You caught me. I should have checked with you first to make sure we weren't running low on food. Must be near my time of the month because I was craving sugar like a fiend."
"Sweets?"
"My weakness."
"All right." Sounded logical. Too bad his instincts wouldn't shut off that infernal blaring. "Sorry for being an ass."
"You're forgiven." Her smile almost quieted the noise in his head roaring louder than the waterfall behind her.
He hated himself for what he was about to do, even though he knew he had no choice. He couldn't help her if he didn't have all the facts.
Lucas started to turn away, just enough that through his peripheral vision he could see her start relaxing. Her defenses and arm lowered.
With lightning reflexes, he pivoted. His hand clamped down around her wrist. Tightening. Her fist opened. The syringe plopped onto the leafy floor, empty except for one last drop on the tip of the needle.
Instincts quieted.
His brain refused to register what he was seeing. He knew, but didn't want to accept.
Then his mind revved full speed ahead in logging facts from the past two days. Sara had been gripped by sweats and shakes. She'd been beyond exhausted and so tied to keeping that damn backpack with her at all times. He'd seen enough drug users in his old neighborhood, not just Dawn, to recognize the signs of someone hiding a habit.
Rage heated his gut, working its way up to sear his brain. At least half of that anger directed itself right back at him. He'd known something was wrong. His instincts had screamed that loudest of all.
He needed to quit thinking with his libido and fully engage his IQ again.
Sara scooped up the leather case and tucked the syringe back inside, her hands trembling, her face flushing. "Oh, uh, I should explain about that."
"I know what I'm looking at. There." He pointed to the pouch, then up to her face. "Here. The profuse sweating. The shakes. You just couldn't wait any longer for a hit."
Chapter 8
A hit?" Sara repeated the words, certain she couldn't have heard Lucas correctly.
She'd been concerned with him finding out about her diabetes, but she'd never imagined he would think... what?
Eye level and on one knee, Lucas pressed a hand to the ground, his jaw flexing. His other hand landed on her shoulder.
In comfort? Or to ensure she didn't run?
"It makes such sense now, I can't believe I didn't think of it on my own. I wondered what could keep you in Chavez's compound for five freaking years and now I know." He really couldn't believe she was hiding a drug habit from him.
She wanted to be wrong, prayed she was wrong, and gave him one last chance to prove it.
"You think you know, do you?"
His grip on her shoulder tightened, almost painfully. "He hooked you on drugs, didn't he? Maybe when you were recovering from the surgery?"
Tears burned behind her eyes. Perhaps she could pass them off as more sweat trickling down her face because she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
Since finding him alive, she'd allowed herself to nurture hope and tiny dreams. She couldn't even find words to express her regret, grief.
Anger.
Thank heavens Lucia was occupied finishing her banana and scratching patterns on the ground with a stick, because Sara didn't want her child to witness the confrontation no doubt about to explode.
Lucas's face pulled tight, some of her pain staining his eyes. "I'm so damn sorry. But we can get you help as soon as we're back in the States. You don't have to live this way any longer."
Even seeing her regret echoed in him didn't help ease the disillusionment. "You think I'm a drug addict?"
He brushed his thumb along her collarbone with comfort given far too late. "I'm trying to be sensitive, and believe me, it doesn't come easy."
She jerked the zipper closed and tossed the case aside. "You think you're invincible. Well you're not. Your decisions and instincts aren't always the best because you never factor your feelings into the equation."
His own calm slipped. "What the hell does this have to do with anything?"
"You believe you're thinking rationally, but there's something going on in your head that's making you draw false conclusions."
"Then tell me the truth."
Something broke inside her. Blame it on tension five years building—losing Lucas, losing her brother, fearing she would lose her child, losing her freedom. So many horrible losses.
"Would you even believe me?"
"Damn it, Sara, let's be civil," he hissed low, jerking his head toward Lucia as if it mattered what she heard. "It doesn't matter whose kid she is, I will not let her grow up with a drug addict mother."
Whose kid? Her racing mind screeched to a halt on those two words.
And she'd thought he couldn't hurt her any worse. "What did you say?"
He didn't fidget or even blink this time, but his incredible stillness betrayed him nonetheless. He knew he'd screwed up and he was scrambling to cover. "I said Lucia deserves better than a drug addict mother."
Nice try. "Not that part. The other part about you not caring whose kid she was."
He still didn't look away, but he stayed quiet for five seconds too long. "I meant that no kid should have a drug addict parent."
"No, you didn't." The full, horrible reality of his slip swelled through her. "You bastard."
She shoved his rock wall of a chest. She shoved again, even in her anger careful of his injured arm and somehow that awareness hurt her all the more because she didn't want to harbor even the smallest tender emotion for this man. Again she thumped his chest, and again, not that he bothered to block her blows, which proved more effective in stopping her.
Her hands fell to her sides.
She may not be the silly young woman looking for flowery romance, but she was damn well woman enough to expect more from a man than cold duty. "I am not a drug addict. I have diabetes, and you, Lucas Quade, can go straight to hell."
Go to hell? It felt pretty much as if he was already there.
Diabetes? Lucas stifled the urge to kick himself for being an idiot. He had simply reacted and dug himself into a deep pit with a tiger at the bottom. Their past. And right there in the middle of it was a syringe of insulin, this child and whatever had happened to Sara in the past five years. None of which could be taken care of here and now.
Commanders also knew when peace was more important than fighting, and God knew, he needed some peace to quiet the frustration roaring inside him over wanting... what?
Wanting to be the kind of man who could handle this with more diplomacy than he had in his whole freaking arsenal. He scratched the back of his neck, itchy from sweat, bug bites and the sense that something was about to go way wrong. Talking wouldn't accomplish anything today except delay their departure.
Footsteps sounded behind him. Damn. He definitely needed to get his head out of his ass and focus on the here and now. His hand went to his waist, curved around his M9 as he twisted to look behind him at...
Lucia.
Relief jetted through his veins, along with a hefty dose of what-the-hell-was-I-thinking. He'd all but forgotten the kid was there.
"Mama?" Lucia dropped to sit beside her mother, her narrowed eyes clearly broadcasting an us-against-him alignment.
"What, chica?" Sara thumbed a hint of banana from the corner of Lucia's mouth as the little girl poked her tongue against the inside of her cheek.
Lucia picked up the small black leather case from where it had fallen into a pile of moss. "Is somethin' wrong with your die-a-beasties?"
Die-a-what? Lucas tried to decipher the sometimes garbled syntax of kid-language, doubled by the occasional bilingual blends.
Diabetes. Even the kid had known.
If he performed this piss-poorly at work, his squadron would be wiped out in a week. But with Sara, he never could hold on to his objectivity for more than five seconds.
"Lucia Maria Carmelita." Sara's stern tones, unlike any he'd ever heard from her, yanked Lucas back to the moment. "What is that in your mouth?"
Her tiny tongue poking against her cheek slid away. "Nuffin'."
Lucia gulped.
Parental instincts he hadn't even known he possessed went on full-scale alert. He forced his voice to stay soft, unthreatening. "Lucia, did you eat a bug?"
Her feet turned in until the toes of her hiking boots touched. Staying too silent, she glanced away.
Guilt stamped all over her heat-flushed face.
Knuckle under her chin, he tipped her face toward him. "Didn't I tell you that I like bugs, too? I only want to be sure it's the right kind of bug that won't make you sick."
Finally, Lucia met his eyes, hers wide and dark and heartbreakingly scared. "You're not gonna get gwumpy?"
Foreboding kinked tighter around his gut. She had eaten a bug. But what kind?
"I promise—if you tell me what it was." Please God, let him be able to ID it from a kid's description in a jumbled mix of English and Spanish.
She fit her hand in his. "I can show you 'cause there's lots more of 'em over here. But I stayed away from the frogs, just like you told me."
"Good girl. Now let's look at the bugs."
He followed as she led him back over to the tree where he'd left her eating her banana—left her unattended because he'd wanted to romance her mother, damn it all to hell. Sara's quick footsteps sounded behind him, but he couldn't let himself think about her fear right now. He couldn't let himself think about her at all, or how badly he'd been off the mark about the syringe.
Lucia pointed to the base of the tree, to a notch where tiny brown pellet-size balls lay scattered, which unless he missed his guess were...
Snatching up a stick, Lucas rustled deeper into the crevice. Spiders fanned free, some crawling up the trunk, others curling into a pellet and dropping to the ground in their instinctive hiding mechanism.
He tamped down dread that would only slow him when he already suspected they were running out of time. He studied the creatures scampering up the trunk. God, he wanted to be wrong...but there it was.
A minuscule orange hourglass on the arachnid's body—a poisonous brown widow spider.
"Lucas?" Sara's shaky voice behind him reminded him that somebody needed to stay in control.
He knelt in front of Lucia. He even managed a smile. "Did the spider tickle you anywhere before you swallowed it?"
She grinned back and held up her wrist. "I let him climb up my arm, but he bited me. I got mad. So I smooshed him and then I ate him."
A bite. Already swollen and red on her too-damn-tiny arm. The pain, sweats, paralysis would come later. "Thank you for telling me the truth."
"And gracias, for not getting gwumpy."
He was too damn scared to be grumpy. "Sara, could you get the first aid kit?"
She bolted into action.
He'd do what he could to clean the site, but time was precious. "Are you ready for another horsie ride, kiddo?"
