to their survival for him to risk dulling the edge, so he made do with his walking stick.
His leg hurt like the devil.
He’d really done it this time, hadn’t he? He should never have complicated the operation in order to rescue a native. Even if she was a nun.
But Michael remembered the round, wrinkled face smiling up at him, and sighed. Stupid or not, there was no way he could have left Sister Maria Elena in the hands of a madman who made war on innocents.
His white-knight complex had put him in one hell of a bad spot, though. He hadn’t exaggerated the danger of seeking help in a village. They wouldn’t have to encounter El Jefe himself to be in big trouble. This area was smack dab in the middle of the easiest line of retreat for El Jefe’s troops if the action at Santo Pedro went against them, and soldiers on the losing side of a war were notoriously apt to turn vicious. The rebels already had a name for brutality. If El Jefe was defeated, his control over the worst of his men would be gone, leaving only one thing standing between the pretty minister and rape, probably followed by death: Michael.
And he was wounded.
He pushed a vine aside, set the end of his stick into the spongy ground and kept moving. Already he was leaning more heavily on the stick than when they’d first set out.
His lips tightened. Pain could slow him down, but it wasn’t a major problem. The real worry was infection, and there was damned little he could do about it. When the Reverend had made a fuss about treating him first he’d let her have her way, but that had been for her sake. She needed to feel useful, to feel in control of something. The few minutes’ difference in getting his leg treated wouldn’t have mattered. Not after his long soak in the river.
“Watch out for the branch,” he said, ducking beneath an overhanging limb.
“Tell me, Lieutenant,” said a disgruntled voice behind him. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
In spite of his mood, Michael felt a grin tug at his mouth. He knew why he’d been demoted to a title. Her legs had looked every bit as delicious bare as he’d hoped. Better. He’d enjoyed looking them over—enjoyed it enough to make the first part of their hike uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with his leg.
That kind of discomfort he didn’t mind. “I’m looking for high ground so I can figure out where we are and plan a route.”
“How?”
“I’ve got eyes, a map, a compass and a GPS device.” If he had to be saddled with a civilian, at least he’d drawn one with guts and stamina. She didn’t complain, didn’t insist on meaningless reassurances. She just kept going.
Couldn’t ask for more than that. “What does A.J. stand for?”
“Alyssa Jean. I’m not fluent in acronym. What does GPS mean?”
“Global Positioning System.” His brother Jacob had given him the gadget for his birthday, saying that this way Michael would know where he was, even if no one else did. “It talks to satellites and fixes my location on a digital map.”
“Is that the thing you were fiddling with back at the river?”
“Yeah.” He’d set the first waypoint after checking her out for scratches. He smiled. Man, those were great legs.
“I hope it’s more watertight than your first aid kit.”
“Seems to be. Why do you go by A.J.? Alyssa’s a pretty name.”
“First-grade trauma,” she said, her voice wry and slightly winded, “combined with stubbornness. There were three Alyssas in my class. I didn’t want to share my name, so I became A.J. It suited me. I was something of a tomboy as a kid.”
“How does a tomboy end up a minister?” A minister with long, silky legs and small, high breasts…and blue eyes. That had surprised him. Somehow he’d thought they’d be brown, a gentle, sensible color. But they were blue. Sunny-sky blue.
“Same way anyone else does, I guess. I felt called to the ministry, so after college I enrolled in seminary.” There was a scuffling sound, and what sounded suspiciously like a muffled curse. He paused, glancing over his shoulder.
She was climbing to her feet. “A root got me. Maybe I need a stick like yours.”
“I’ll keep my eye out for one.” They were near the top of the hill. Maybe he would let himself rest for a few minutes while he plugged in the new waypoint. His thigh was throbbing like a mother.
“How’s your leg?”
“Not bad.” He ducked under a hanging vine, grabbed the limb of a small tree to pull himself up a particularly steep section, straightened—and froze, his breath catching.
A small, scared whisper came from behind him. “What is it?”
In answer, he moved aside, gesturing for her to come up beside him.
The pocket-size clearing in front of them was coated in blue. Fluttering blue, brighter-than-sky blue, bits of sunny ocean floating free, their wings sorting air currents lazily.
Butterflies. What seemed like hundreds of butterflies flooded the little clearing, many with wingspans as large as his two hands.
A.J.’s shoulder brushed his. A second later, the butterflies rose—a dipping, curling cloud of blue swimming up, up through the air, lifting above the surrounding trees. Then gone.
“Ooh…”
Her soft exclamation was filled with all the wordless awe he felt. He turned to look at her. “Yeah,” he said, because he had no words for what they’d just seen…or what he saw now in her shining eyes.
Blue eyes. Not as bright as the butterfly cloud, maybe, but clear and lovely.
A smile broke over her face, big as dawn. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
He hadn’t, either. A child’s delight on a woman’s face…was there anything more lovely? Without thinking, he touched her cheek. “You’ve got a spot of dried mud here.”
Her smiled faded. “I’ve got dried mud in a lot of places.”
“Brown’s a good color on you.” He rubbed lightly at the spot on her cheek. Surely the butterflies’ wings couldn’t have been any softer than her skin. His fingers spread to cup her face, and rested there while he looked for something in her eyes. Permission, maybe.
“Michael…” Her throat moved in a nervous swallow.
“I’m going to kiss you.” At that moment, it sounded wholly reasonable to him. “Just a kiss, no big deal.”
“Bad idea.” Her eyes were wide and wary. “Very bad idea.” But she didn’t move away.
“Don’t worry. I don’t let my—ah, my body do my thinking for me.” He bent closer to her pretty lips.
One kiss couldn’t hurt, could it?
He kept it simple, the most basic
