Heart of Fire Read online

  Deliberately she pulled her hand out of her pack just enough for him to see the handle of her own weapon, before she replaced it and zipped the bag up again. He gave her a long, level look, as if trying to decide whether or not she was truly willing to use it. She returned the look, in spades. If he thought she was exaggerating about knowing how to use a weapon, or about having used it in the past, then he had better think again. The woman who looked back at him wasn’t someone who would shrink from protecting her own life, or the lives of others, and she saw the knowledge flare in his eyes.

  A slow grin spread across his face, one that lit his entire expression. All of a sudden the ill temper that had shadowed his eyes for days was gone. For some reason, Jillian didn’t trust that glowing smile. If Ben Lewis looked that happy, then he had just thought of something that she knew she wouldn’t like.

  Ben started whistling as he leaped ashore, taking care not to get too close to the machete Dutra was swinging with lethal power. Jillian had just told him a lot more than she thought she had, and it was all he could do to keep from chortling.

  But he had some serious problems on his hands that he had to handle right now, and his face turned expressionless as he approached Kates.

  “Walk over here with me,” he said, and moved toward the other boat, away from Dutra. Reluctantly Kates followed, and Rick lurched to accompany them.

  “Can you handle Dutra?” Ben asked brusquely. “If you can’t, I’m going to leave him at the next settlement. I can’t watch my back and pay attention to everything else, too, and I’ll get damn tired of having to hold a pistol on him to make him work.”

  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten who’s paying the way here. Don’t give me that captain-of-the-ship shit again.” Kates lit a cigarette and eyed Ben through the smoke.

  “That’s exactly the shit you’re going to get. If you don’t like the way I do things, I’ll bail out at the next settlement, and you can go to hell for all I care.”

  “Fine,” Kates snapped. “You do that. Dutra says he’s familiar with the interior and I believe him. We don’t need you.”

  Ben snorted. “Then you deserve what you get with him. I hope you enjoy your little outing, because you sure as hell won’t find what you’re looking for.”

  “That’s your opinion, and we all know what your opinion’s worth,” Rick put in belligerently.

  Neither Ben nor Kates even glanced at him. “Oh, we’ll find it,” Kates said with assurance.

  “Not without Jillian.”

  That gave Kates pause, and his good-looking face went cold. “What about Jillian?”

  “She’ll stay with me. Let’s just say that Dutra hasn’t made a favorable impression on her.”

  “And you have?” Rick hooted. “She thinks you’re slime.”

  Ben allowed himself a complacent grin. “But good in bed.”

  Again Kates gave him a considering look. “You’re bluffing,” he finally said.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Jillian wants to find this place more than any of us, so she can clear her old man’s name,” Kates said. “She won’t give up the chance just because you’re screwing her.”

  Rick frowned. “My sister? Gotta be kidding. Jillian’s probably queer. She hangs around with a bunch of weirdos. Know what I mean?”

  Sherwood was beginning to get on Ben’s nerves, but he continued to ignore him. “Not just because of that, no,” Ben agreed. “But take a good look at Dutra; if you were a woman, would you want to go anywhere with him in charge? Why the hell do you think I insisted that Jillian be on my boat? She flatly refused to get on the same boat with Dutra.”

  He was bluffing, of course. He’d already learned enough about Jillian to know that “stubborn” was her middle name. She had her mind set on finding this lost city, and God help anyone who got in her way. But he figured that both Kates and her brother underestimated her. Now, having been on the receiving end of her temper, and having seen the look of calm determination in her eyes when she showed him the pistol, he had an entirely different picture of the woman. It suited him, though, for the others to underestimate her.

  He shrugged negligently. “Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

  Rick turned to obey. “Hey, Jillian!” he yelled. “Is Lewis really—”

  Ben divined what the idiot was about to say a split second before the words came out, and that was exactly how long it took his fist to connect with Sherwood’s gut. Rick’s breath left him in a big whoosh, and he doubled up, clutching his belly. He coughed and began vomiting. Ben immediately stepped back, as did Kates.

  When the spasm had ended, Ben knotted his hand in Rick’s shirt and hauled him up on his toes. “Get sober,” he advised in a voice that was devoid of his usual I-don’t-give-a-damn tone. “And stay sober. Because if you say anything to Jillian that I don’t like, I’m going to stomp your ass into the mud, whether you’re in any condition to fight back or not. Is that clear?”

  Rick tried to shove Ben’s hand away, but Ben just twisted the fabric tighter. “I said, is that clear?” he barked.

  “Yeah,” Rick finally panted. “Uh—yeah.”

  “You’d better remember it.” Ben released him with a little shove and turned slitted eyes to Kates. “Well, what’s your decision?”

  Kates didn’t like it—in fact, he hadn’t liked anything about this damn expedition since the minute the boats left the dock in Manaus—but what he saw in Lewis’s narrowed eyes made him back down. He would cut the big-shot guide down to size, he swore to himself, as soon as they found the jewel and didn’t need him or Jillian Sherwood any longer. He’d see how good Lewis grinned at him with an extra mouth sliced into his throat. But first maybe he’d let him watch while Dutra had fun with the broad.

  “All right,” he muttered. “I’ll talk to Dutra.”

  “You’d better do more than just talk. If he even looks at me cross-eyed, he’s out.” Ben walked back to the first boat, aware of Jillian’s sharply curious gaze on him. He was grateful that she had remained where she was, rather than coming ashore to see what the altercation was about. Probably she had done so in order to keep watch on Dutra. The idea of her guarding his back gave Ben a warm feeling.

  Rick and Kates watched him go, both wearing expressions of anger and hatred in varying degrees.

  “Son of a bitch,” Rick said, wiping his mouth. “I’ll kill him.”

  Kates gave him a furious look. Rick Sherwood was ineffectual, strictly small-time, though he swaggered and tried to pass himself off as a real hard-ass. His whining was getting on Kates’s nerves; getting rid of him would be a pleasure, but for right now he had to endure the aggravation. “You’re too drunk to kill a goddamn bug. He’s right. Why the hell don’t you sober up? You’re no good to me like this.”

  “This stupid river is boring,” Rick said, voice and expression turning sullen. “Nothing to do all day but just sit and watch the trees go by.”

  “Even Dutra is staying sober. Maybe we should leave you behind.”

  Still seething at how he had been outmaneuvered, Kates went over to where Dutra was swinging the machete with murderous power.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said, jerking his head to indicate they should step out of hearing, for all of the Brazilians spoke some English and he didn’t want any eavesdroppers.

  Dutra halted the swing of the machete and walked a few paces away. There was a chilling gleam in his eyes, an expression at once empty and savage. It even gave Kates an uneasy feeling. “I will kill him tonight,” Dutra said, hefting the machete. His upper lip curled, showing his incisors. “With one swing, his head will bounce across the bottom of the boat.”

  “Not yet, damn it,” Kates said. “The woman won’t cooperate without the bastard, and we have to have her. Just play along until we find the jewel. Then you can do whatever you want with both of them.”

  “I can make her cooperate,” Dutra replied, his small eyes swinging to the trim figure aboard the first boat.