Tired, hungry, and wet, they finally reached the top of the climb. Jayde had her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath. This was much harder than rock-climbing. The rain didn’t make it any easier, either. Tyson barely seemed winded, and Jayde hated him for that.
“Stay here for a moment. I’m going to look around,” he commanded as he set the pack down beside her. Before she could form a response, he slipped away, blending into the landscape as if he were part of it.
Jayde tipped her head back—after checking above her head for spiders—letting the rain wash the sweat away. “Jesus, I stink. I want a shower,” she told the jungle and received no answer for her honest admis-sion.
Not sure where Tyson went or how long he would be gone, Jayde turned and looked down the moun-tain side they just climbed. It was hard to imagine that someone was out there after them. It looked like she was the only person in the world. She smiled as she gazed all around. It was amazing how nature could make a person feel so small and insignificant. The feeling was almost surreal, and if it weren’t for the plane blowing up in midair, she wouldn’t have believed it.
A sound of someone or something in the brush brought her to her feet. Her stomach full of knots, she felt the need to puke. Just before her hand was on the gun, the sweetest male voice in the world reached her. “Jayde, it’s me.”
Tyson walked back to where he’d left her. “Come on, I found a dry place we can hole up for a while. We should be safe for the night.”
“Should?” she asked.
“Will. We will be safe for the night,” he responded.
Dutifully, Jayde picked up the pack, ignoring his hand out for it, and put it on her own back, waiting for him to lead the way. Tyson circled around and melted away in the thick foliage.
I am safe from snakes and spiders, she hoped as she trailed Tyson. He moved swiftly but not as fast as the approaching night. It was almost pitch black when he stopped in front of her.
“We will stay here.” He gestured to a shape that looked ominous to Jayde in the rapidly fading light.
“That looks like a den,” Jayde insisted.
“It is,” Tyson said pointedly.
Her heart stopped and she turned away as if she were going to walk off. “I am not sleeping where some pissed-off momma is going to come back and eat me for being too close to her babies!”
“The den has been abandoned. There are no large animals,” he assured her. His strong grip brought her back to his side.
“What about snakes? Spiders?”
“Turn around.” His voice sounded almost amused.
Jayde did, although she was most defiantly not amused, and felt him digging in the pack. Soon, he flicked on a flashlight that shone mutedly into the small den. It was more of a hollow in the base of a tree and hillside. However, no creatures caught her attention.
“Let’s go. We need to eat something, and I have to figure out where we are,” Tyson said in that dam-nable commanding voice of his.
Jayde crawled in, praying the whole way, and watched Tyson follow her. He placed several big plant leaves in front of the hole. Camouflage and protection, she guessed. The den wasn’t that big and it was going to be a tight fit. But at least it was dry.
Tyson settled beside her. With the pack in front of them, he used the light to search for the MREs and handed her one. “Here.”
Jayde took the food with her shaking hands. All she could see were big spiders coming to bite her and snakes to help.
“Jayde, you need to eat,” his voice cut through her fear.
She ate a little bit even as she noticed how fast he went through his. He must be starving. The half left in her pack she offered to him.
“No, you eat it,” he said.
“I can’t. My stomach is feeling queasy,” Jayde responded. Finally he took it and finished it off.
The rain and wind picked up outside and Jayde scooted closer to Tyson for warmth and comfort. Ac-cepting a quick drink of the water, Jayde closed her eyes and tried to picture herself in New York. She began to rock back and forth, a habit for her.
Tyson took the ponchos and blankets out of the pack. He put a poncho on the ground and sat Jayde on it. Doing the same with the other one, he settled himself back beside her. A blanket for each of them and they were ready for the night. He gave her the fire blanket; she figured he could handle the elements better.
“How much do you know about Central America, Jayde?” Tyson asked after a while.
The rocking stopped, the question distracting her from her nerves. “Not much. Why?”
“Well, you knew that bird; I was wondering if you knew more about these countries,” he answered.
“Not really.” Her eyes stayed tightly closed as her body remained tense.
“I am guessing we are in the upper part of Guatemala. Based on our flight plan and the amount of time we had been in the air before they shot us down, it makes sense.”
“So are we safe then? Being in Guatemala instead of Belize?” Jayde asked hopefully.
“I wish, but no. Not up here in the jungle. Boundaries tend to be blurred down here,” he responded honestly.
“Of course they would be,” she moaned. The rocking began again.
Tyson changed the subject. “Why did you come to Belize?”
Out of everything he could have asked, Jayde didn’t expect that. She thought he’d continue on about how to get out of here. Nevertheless, she answered. “I wanted to go to the preserve.”
“Well, why didn’t you just stay at one of the hotels there?” Tyson asked curiously.
“I wanted to be able to do other things. Not that I wouldn’t have been able to if I’d stayed there, but that was where father wanted me to stay. I guess it was an act of defiance on my part. I don’t know. Something just told me to stay where I did,” she commented, unaware her rocking had stopped.
“Why did you come alone? I can’t believe you didn’t have a man back in New York who wouldn’t have joined you down here.”
“I do…did…do…did. Did. I did have a man,” she stumbled over her words, not entirely sure how she wanted to say it.
“What happened?”
“Well, I have…had been dating George for almost eight months.” For some reason she didn’t feel bad talking about this with Tyson. She needed to tell someone, and it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. The rain increased in strength outside the cave, making her even happier that she was dry and warm.
“And?” he prompted.
“Well, for the first few months it was fine. Then it changed…well, he changed. We work in the same place so maybe that was part of it. But he started calling me at all hours of the night and expected me to be there…God help me if I wasn’t. On the days we didn’t see each other at work, he would call me no less than five times a day,” she said with disgust. “He would be angry if I missed his calls. He got obsessed with my personal life and tried to tell me who I could and couldn’t befriend. But I didn’t stop dating him because Father liked him. So I just put up with it.” Jayde leaned against Tyson’s body, an action that seemed so natural for her to do.
“About the time I realized I was really coming down to Belize, I became conscious of the fact I didn’t want him with me. He would—I knew—ruin my vacation by barking orders at me and telling me what to eat, when to eat it, and how much of it to eat, ’cause apparently I was getting fatter and fatter. Not a good image for him to be seen with, you know, so I broke up with him.” She eagerly accepted Tyson’s comfort-ing touch.
“I still think George believes I am just being ‘adolescent’ because Father still brings him up to me, so I know he is still in contact with my family. They love him,” her voice cracked with pain. “He is on his way up in the world. A brother with ideals and potential.” Her next sentence came out in a hiss of anger. “They should marry him, then.”
Tyson listened incredulously. How her family could be so blind to the pain they were causing her? He couldn’t wait for the day he walked up to her parents’ front door and said, “Hello. I’m your daughter’s husband.” Not to mention that idiot George—where did he get off telling Jayde she was fat? Tyson sure as hell didn’t agree with that assessment; Jayde was curvaceous and muscular. Fat was definitely not a word he would think of when looking at her. All in all she was rockin’. “Well, I for one am glad you came alone,” he said in a deep voice beside her ear.
“Me too.”
Her fast response made him grin despite their current situation. “Our renewal of our vows would have been really awkward with your boyfriend there,” Tyson teased.
“They probably wouldn’t have believed us. Not that they really did, anyway, which is why I don’t un-derstand why he wanted a renewal.”
Because they knew it would be real afterward and thought we weren’t serious. “Tell me more about your family,” he suggested instead.