Chapter 9
The sun was up and bright by the time Amy opened her eyes again. Sunshine. Glorious sunshine.
Being from Texas, she didn’t normally miss the sun. Being in the jungle gave her a whole new appreciation for the bright yellow orb that burned too bright from July through the end of October most years. Now, she would welcome the heat on her skin.
Much to her surprise, Knox was in such a deep sleep that he had a low snore going. It wasn’t much more than a low rumble from his chest and, surprisingly, was sexy as all get out. But then pretty much everything about the man fell into the sex on a stick bucket as far as she was concerned.
Going down that road, even just in her mind, was a waste of time. He didn’t deny having a past with the local woman, so staying with Amy last night was most likely for her protection.
Amy exhaled. She must have breathed a little too hard because in the next second Knox was on top of her with his forearm to her throat. There was enough pressure to know he was there but not enough to stop her from breathing.
Still, it all happened in a blink and completely freaked her out.
“Knox,” she said, staring into eyes of stone. “It’s me. Amy.”
He didn’t so much as blink.
She brought her knee up hard into his thigh. “Hey!”
As though knocked out of a trance, his gaze sharpened. “Jesus.” He rolled off her so fast the hammock tipped. She had no idea how but he managed to keep them from falling out with a steady hand.
The man had skills.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, searching her face and neck.
“No,” she reassured. “I’m alright. I’m good. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being shaken up a little, but I’m okay.”
Before she knew it, Knox had positioned her in the same spot in the crook of his arm where she’d slept so comfortably that she’d lost all sense of time and place.
“I think I’m the one who should be asking if you’re okay,” she said.
He shook his head. “Job hazard from a lifetime spent working in the military.” He issued a sharp breath. “I could have done serious damage, Amy. That can’t happen again.”
There’d been something else there, a flash where she’d seen pure feral instinct kicking in. Did that have to do with his time in the military or the scars on his neck and body?
She brought her hand up and ran her finger along the scar on his neck that led to his collarbone. “What happened here?”
She expected him to close up again, but if she didn’t ask, she’d never stop wondering. Plus, he couldn’t answer if she didn’t give him the chance.
Knox brought a hand up to rub his eyes. “My dad.”
“Jesus, Knox. What did he do?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” he said like he had to sift through dozens of memories to find the one that applied to this scar. Her heart squeezed. “This one happened on my thirteenth birthday when I failed to open a can of dog food properly.” He paused like retrieving the memory took time. “The can was dented and I wasn’t strong enough to turn the damn crank on the opener.”
“So he cut you?”
“Slammed the can into me and then kept pounding it into my chest area below my neck,” he said, his voice monotone like he was talking about changing the oil in his car. “I think the fact he cut me was unintentional.”
“You were barely a teenager,” she said, hearing the indignance in her own voice. A few more puzzle pieces clicked together as she realized, for the first time, Knox was opening up to her and sharing something that must have hurt him deeply. Not just on a physical level. Though, the scar was obvious there too. But more deeply than that because his father should have created a safe place for Knox.
If only she could go back in time and give the bastard a piece of her mind. He’d moved away not long after Knox went into the military. She’d heard something about him moving to Galveston, a town south of Houston.
“Do you still speak to him?” she asked, gently running her index finger along the raised skin of the scar.
“Hell no,” he said. “I have no reason to contact the man. He wasn’t a real father so I saw no reason to keep in touch.”
“What about your mother?” she asked.
His laugh held no joy. “She got the hell out early on and never looked back. I was notified of her passing two years into my service.”
“I’m sorry, Knox. That couldn’t have been easy.”
“I didn’t know her,” he said honestly. “Hard to mourn someone you have no real memories of.”
“Is that why you never came back?” Amy asked.
“No reason to,” he said. Why did those words sting?
“You had friends there,” she pointed out.
“Garrett went with me,” he said. There was a hitch in his voice when he said the words. He must miss her brother as much as she did. She’d noticed the silver dollar necklace that hung around his neck. He kept it tucked inside his shirt, same as she did.
“You could have come back on holidays,” she said. “We would have made room for you at the table. My mom would have set an extra place.”
“Between her and Garrett, I managed to finish high school with a full stomach,” he countered. “I wasn’t about to ask more from your family. You were dealing with your own lives and didn’t need to take on mine.”
“I never heard anyone complain,” she said softly.
“Your mom had a hard time making ends meet,” he said. “She didn’t need the burden of an extra mouth to feed.”
A picture was emerging as to why Garrett rarely came home for holidays either. She had a sneaky suspicion her brother didn’t want Knox to spend the time alone. Since those two were more like brothers than best friends, it made sense Garrett would go where he was most needed. He always came home afterward, though. And she’d checked over his shoulder every time to see if Knox was behind her brother.
“My mother never complained about not having Garrett home for the holidays,” Amy said. “I think I’m beginning to understand why.”
“Life is complicated,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him, doing her best to find the words to ease some of his pain. “Thank you for telling me something so personal.”
“It’s nothing.” He tried to play it off, but his expression belied those words as he looked at her with such vulnerability in his beautiful eyes. In an instant, the moment was gone and his gaze was focused.
Since she didn’t want to ruin the moment by filling the space between them with words, she lowered her chin and nestled into the crook of his arm.
“We should probably get up at some point,” he finally said.
“True,” she agreed.
“But this spot is as close to heaven as I’ll ever get.” He said the words so low they barely registered.
She’d heard, though. And couldn’t help but smile.
Leaving Knox would shatter her, but she couldn’t think about that right now, or about the fact she would never see him again once this was over.
“Where do you live now?” she asked, wanting to capitalize on the mood.
“Yellowstone,” he responded.
“Wyoming?” she asked. “I thought you hated the cold.”
“Still do,” he said.
“How did you end up there?” she continued, knowing he could close up at any moment. This might be her only chance to learn more about who Knox had become in the years since he’d been away from Texas.
“Rehab,” he said, clenching his jaw. “Trying to get these old body parts to work again.”
“You are old,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“Told you so,” he quipped. The break in tension was a nice change of pace.
“Ancient really,” she continued.
“Too old for you,” he shot back.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be changing your adult diapers in a few years.”
“Damn,” he said, like he was offended. “That one cuts a little deep.”
“Truth hurts,” she said with a light elbow jab to his ribcage. This seemed like a good time to remind herself about the local woman who’d left his hut yesterday. He’d said nothing was going on between them, but why wouldn’t she look Amy in the eyes if that was true? Something had been going on. She’d been crying. Had he broken it off? Told her that they would never be a thing? Had she been waiting—much like Amy in some ways—for him to return? And then what? Sweep her off her feet like in some fairy tale version of life?
Last Amy checked, fantasy was for books and movies. The real world didn’t work out the same. Maybe it was time to stop measuring every man she met against Knox. Open her heart to someone? Because going back to Texas and living alone had never felt so empty.
“What about you?” Knox turned the tables.
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you still live in Texas?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I work at a bar to make enough money to pay bills and buy expensive waterproof, windproof camera equipment.” The last part was a little too real to be funny. “Thought the bar work would be temporary but here I am, still doing it.”
“Sounds flexible,” he reasoned. “Not that I think you should be working in a bar, walking to your car alone at night in a dark parking lot that could have drunk men on the prowl.”
“We have a bouncer who always sticks around late on his own time to walk us to our vehicles,” she said.
“I don’t like it,” he practically growled. She could feel the rumble in his chest. “Garrett wouldn’t approve of his baby sister in that setting.”
“First of all, I’m not a baby,” she felt the need to point out.
“No, you’re not,” he said before she could continue. “You’re a stunningly beautiful woman, which is precisely my point.”
“I doubt Garrett looked at me that way,” she said.
“No, but he wasn’t blind,” Knox stated. “Did he know about the bar?”
“No,” she admitted, her cheeks heating with embarrassment that she’d deceived her brother because she absolutely knew he wouldn’t approve. “I added a few letters.”
“Bar-ista,” he figured out.
“Exactly,” she said. “Which I was, of sorts.”
“Bullshit,” he said, masked through a cough.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “Garrett would not have approved, so I didn’t tell him. It wasn’t like he was coming home all the time to check up on me and I’m a grown-ass woman, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said quickly. “It’s impossible not to.” The comment was surely meant to qualify the first but, in fact, dug a deeper hole.
Should she call him out on it?
Knox should probably ziphis mouth shut before he rammed his foot deeper down his throat. At this point, all he could do was laugh.
“Did one of us say something funny?” Amy asked, her body pressed against his had awakened pieces of his soul that he’d stuffed away so long ago he wasn’t sure they existed any longer.
He’d slept a little too deeply, a little too comfortably.
He tried to convince himself the reason had to do with her being safe lying next to him, but the situation was far more complicated than that explanation.
“Not really,” he admitted.
“Then, why are you laughing?”
“Seemed like the best option at the time,” he answered.
“Care to clue me in?”
He clamped his mouth shut and then made the mistake of locking gazes with her. The moment changed from light and funny to intense and sexy in two seconds flat. “If we stay like this for very long, I’m going to ask permission to kiss you.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Honestly?” he asked.
“You’ve always been straight with me,” she said. “Why stop now?”
“My morning breath might kill you,” he said. “But by the time I brush my teeth, the mood might change.” He decided to keep the part to himself where he could kiss her all day and never get tired. There were other things he imagined doing to her too, but those only served to send blood flying south.
Amy laughed. “Maybe we should brush our teeth, get back in bed, then see where we land.”
“Challenge accepted,” he said, rolling so that the hammock would spill over and drop them out. He caught Amy before she hit the ground. “Now, you owe me one.”
Setting her to the side, he made it to the fresh water bowl first. Just as he grabbed his toothbrush out of his pack, Lorna peeked her head inside the hut and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.
“Okay if I come inside?” she asked.
“Busy,” Knox stated.
“You can come in,” Amy said. Those words killed the mood more effectively than a bucket of ice-cold water.
He grabbed his supplies and headed to his own hut where, lucky him, Donnie probably waited. “I’ll be in my hut if you need me.”
“I will,” Amy said before taking his spot at the water bowl.
“We’re heading out today, so be ready.” He walked out as she brushed her teeth, trying his best to take his mind off what almost just happened. Later on, much later, he would probably look back at the interruption as a blessing in disguise. Being close to Amy was too tempting. He wouldn’t make the mistake a second time.
As much as Knox wanted to stick around in this little paradise for as long as possible, the real world waited. Amy’s mom would be frantic with worry by now if she didn’t hear from her daughter soon. Or would she? Hadn’t Amy told her mom about the documentary she believed she would be doing, instead of the one she’d been tricked into? She had to have warned her mom cell coverage might be spotty. Still. Did her mom worry more now that Garrett was gone?
Donnie wasn’t in their hut. Knox tried not to take it as a bad sign. Everyone had the opportunity to get a good night’s sleep last night. Based on the way Lorna looked a minute ago, mission accomplished.
Knox worked his ankle and wrist. They acted up in humidity. They acted up when it was cold. Basically, they gave him hell most of the time. Pain was good though. It reminded him that he was alive. It reminded him of what he’d lost. And it reminded him of what was important.
Being with Amy?
Shaking the thought out of his head, he brushed his teeth before washing his face. He checked his supplies. There weren’t many left and they still had a day’s walk in front of them, maybe more, before they reached a point where they could signal the chopper for an extraction. He’d diverted from the idea of going back to base camp. If Donnie was in cahoots with someone, they would be waiting there.
At least Knox had been here before, so he was familiar with the area. Familiarity guaranteed nothing when it came to survival out here. But it put a point in their favor at least. He’d take all the help he could get.
Breakfast came in the form of more protein from a fish he didn’t recognize along with several pieces of fruit. He finished the food off in no time. Another bowl of fruit was shoved inside his hut, for his journey. He loaded his pack, thankful for the bounty that should get them through today, longer if necessary.
Lorna’s voice caught his attention as it grew louder.
“Can we come in?” she asked. He assumed she meant Donnie was part of the we. He was surprised when it was Amy instead.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked Lorna, who was holding onto Amy’s hand like she might run away and leave Lorna alone to fend for herself.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Lorna said. “And he’s gone.”
Shit.
“What do you mean?” he asked, hoping that he didn’t hear the second part correctly.
“He made me promise not to tell you until this morning, but he took off at some point during the night,” Lorna supplied.
“And you let him?” Knox asked, frustrated.
Lorna shot a look of apology. “I asked him to change his mind. He agreed, so I thought I’d convinced him. We went to sleep and when I woke up he was gone.”
“Is it possible that he’s somewhere around the village?” The village was small but it was easy to stay out of view by ducking on the other side of a hut.
“I asked around and found out that he asked for a day’s supply of fruit,” she said. “Told one of the villagers that he was going out ahead to scout.”
“Is it possible he was telling the truth?”
Lorna shot a look. “I should have known he wasn’t going to agree so easily. I was brain-dead at that point and shouldn’t have believed him. I’m sorry. I came to Amy as fast as I realized what happened.”
“Did he say why he was striking out on his own?” Knox asked. The man had survived just fine after abandoning Amy. Was this really his first time in the Amazon?
“Said you didn’t know what the hell you were doing and were going to get us all killed,” Lorna stated. “He begged me to come with him before something happened that I won’t recover from.”
Was Donnie blaming Knox for the near drowning in the river?
“I didn’t see him jumping into action when he was needed yesterday,” Knox pointed out. The man was grinding Knox’s gears. He needed to cool it so he could think more clearly. Forcing a calm he didn’t feel because he wanted to wring Donnie’s neck, Knox exhaled. They would travel lighter with three people. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach about Donnie, though. Call it intuition honed by years of military experience, but Donnie would now be perceived as a threat. If they encountered him again, he would be treated as such.
Lorna didn’t respond to his comment. “I can’t believe he would pull something like this. Guess I didn’t know him as well as I believed I did.”
“You can only judge a person by the face they show you,” he said, taking his frustration down a couple of notches.
“We dated for three years,” she said on a slow sigh that was the equivalent of a balloon deflating. “I thought I knew him better than that.”
“We’ll be better off without him,” Knox said, trying to offer reassurance. Based on Lorna’s frown, it backfired. “Which is just to say it’ll be easier to get three of us to safety than four.” He didn’t mention the fact Donnie wasn’t helpful or that he offered nothing more than a sour attitude. Men like him got good soldiers killed on the battlefield.
Then again, so did men like Knox.
More of that guilt and shame assaulted him. He’d been close to Amy last night and not once had it crossed his mind to tell her that he was responsible for Garrett’s death. What kind of asshole did that? He’d sprung out of bed ready and willing to kiss her too. Would that have been the worst kind of betrayal?
She would hate his guts when she found out and he deserved nothing less.
Minimizing the impact would be his best course of action for both of their sakes.
But first, could he get them out of the jungle in one piece? Or would Donnie’s ignorance lead others to them?
If Donnie’s actions weren’t born out of ignorance, he was even more of a threat.