Chapter Eight
I didn’t go back to sleep that night. How could I?
I did lie down, after scooting my sleeping bag closer to Murphy’s. Not because I wanted to be nearer to him, but I had developed a sudden fondness for his gun.
As soon as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, Murphy awoke. “We need to get a move on.”
The guy had a decent work ethic, despite his laid-back, beach bum persona.
“The earlier we disappear into the mountains,” he said, “the easier it’ll be to stay ahead of whoever’s chasing us.”
“I thought we lost them.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Better to get out of here before we find out, oui?”
” Oui,” I said, then scowled. “I thought you were going to stick to a nationality.”
“That I was,” he said with a touch of the Irish.
The more I was with Murphy, the more curious I became about him, which was probably not a good thing considering the length of my sexual deprivation. While I should have been rolling my sleeping bag tightly and cinching it onto my backpack, instead I watched him move, fascinated with the long, lithe length of him, the way the sun cast golden streaks through his hair and sparked shiny flames off his earring.
The feathers were still there, but tangled from the night, and that image gave me all sorts of other ones.
His hands flexed as he filled his backpack, the long, agile fingers making me shiver despite the early heat of the day. How would that silver thumb ring feel if he ran it all over my body?
Pretty damn good.
I forced myself to turn away from the intriguing sight of Devon Murphy bending over and got busy. I had no business fantasizing about the man. I had no business fantasizing about any man. Sex was part of a life that was dead to me.
So why did I keep thinking about it?
“Ready?” Murphy asked.
We’d loaded our packs and partaken of gourmet granola bars and some exquisitely warm water.
“You just going to leave that there?” I indicated the Jeep with a lift of my chin.
“I can’t figure out a way to take it along.”
To me, leaving the vehicle behind was like a big arrow pointing where we’d gone.
“This is a crossroad,” he said more seriously. “I’m sure you know what that means.”
I nodded my understanding.
Crossroads and cemeteries were where black magic lived. No self-respecting Haitian would come anywhere near here.
Murphy and I traveled steadily, the slight incline causing my legs to grumble. The tropical heat made sweat drip from beneath my New Orleans Saints cap onto my pricey new hiking boots.
Though most of Haiti had been cleared for farming, then farmed often and badly, so that the land was dying, I saw no indication of it here. As we moved farther and farther above sea level, the trees grew closer and closer together, with sections of foliage so dense Murphy had to hack a path with his machete.
By midafternoon, my sense of direction was shot. The sun would have helped, but only a few sparkles of light managed to penetrate the dense cover. By my calculations, we should have walked off a cliff several miles back.
“How do you know where to go?” I asked.
“Do you think I’d have taken the j ob as your guide if I didn’t know what I was doing?”
For money I figured he’d do anything, and I had to wonder why. He’d been educated… somewhere. He obviously had a gift for languages. Without the feathers and the beads, he could work at the UN. So what was he doing here?
“Why not here?” Murphy asked.
Whoops. Guess I’d said that out loud.
“Living above a tavern in a slum, hacking your way up a mountain, dodging creditors and bullets, there has to be something more.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Seems exciting enough to me.”
“You’re looking for excitement?”
“I’m looking for something,” he muttered.
For the rest of the afternoon the heat, the pace, the strangely omnipresent jungle, made conversation minimal. As dusk threatened, I smelled water.
At first I thought it was Murphy’s maddening scent combined with my continual thirst. We’d been drinking steadily but sparingly. On a trip like this we couldn’t carry as much water as we should.
When I realized the aroma was actual water and not his skin—thank God; I’d begun to have fantasies of licking his flesh and tasting a crystal-clear lake—then I had to struggle against the urge to shove Murphy to the ground and run right over his back.
He gave a last mighty hack with his machete, and the vines fell away to reveal a secluded pond surrounded by ferns. The gentle lap of the water against the banks, the scent of mist, the pleasant chill in the air, caused me to wonder again if we’d stumbled onto a place out of time.
I took several quick steps forward and Murphy flung out an arm to stop me.
“Move that or die,” I snapped.