Between the piranhas, caimans, and electric eels, something told Rafa they wouldn’t be finding those keys anytime soon, if ever.
Once they were a safe distance away, Rafa let off the throttle. With all the rattling and clanking happening, they had no clue how far this boat would make it. Even with the distance between them and those jackasses, his heart still raced. He’d had some wild adventures, but nothing like this.
I can’t believe I pointed a knife at someone.
He stared at the blade resting on the dash panel. He hadn’t actually planned to use it on Sérgio, but if things had gone differently with Hunter or Kevin, who knew what would have happened? Rafa didn’t want to think about it.
He didn’t want to look at it, either.
“Is everyone okay?” he called out to the main deck. Felix and Logan nodded, squeezing the water out of their clothes.
“That was close,” Miri said, startling him out of his thoughts and entering the captain’s cabin.
“Close?” he asked in disbelief.Closewas them almost catching the bus yesterday and barely missing it. Or her failing to pull the bags on top of the van this morning. Her calling what had happenedcloseafter he’d only minutes earlier threatened to stab someone set him off. “What were youthinking? We could have been killed.”
She ducked her head, twisting her hands together in front of her. “I know. But I…I wasn’t thinking. Or at least I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“Then whatwereyou thinking about?” he demanded, alternating between watching where they were going and Miri standing in the doorway.
“I was thinking about the equipment.” She moved closer as she tried to explain. “I mean, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment here. I’ve already messed so much up on this expedition. I didn’t know they had a knife, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone after them. But I couldn’t…I couldn’t let them take everything.”
“So what? All that equipment isn’t worth your life, Miriam.”
He stared at her, her hands trembling at her sides and her eyes welling with tears. Shit.
Sure, he was angry, but not because he was mad at her. If anything, he was terrified of how badly thingscouldhave turned out.
“Come here,” he said with a sigh, reaching one arm out to her while the other held the wheel steady. She stepped into him and folded into his body, letting him wrap his arm around her. She buried her face in his chest. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I was so scared once I realized what I’d gotten myself into.”
“I was scared, too.”
She looked up. “You were?”
“Of course I was. When I saw you swinging over the river, my heart froze. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. In my head, I thought I’d swing on that vine and touch down on the deck with the perfect footing. And then I’d give them a stern talking to like a badass and they’d flee.”
“Yeah, but like you said, this isn’t exactly Hollywood out here. In real life you don’t always land feet first.”
“Well, in all fairness to my skills, even movie stars often eat their landings, too,” she said with an air of humor in her voice.
Rafa smiled at her, and she smiled back, burying her face in his chest once more. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
“I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
“Minus a couple of sore ribs. And I don’t even want to look in a mirror. My face feels like it’s about ten times bigger than normal,” he said, reaching his hand to gently touch his face.
“It still looks pretty to me.”
Rafa looked down and her eyes went wide.
“I mean, pretty good. Like, it looks normal. Or mostly normal at least. You have a cut on your lip, that’s all. Well, and a bruise above your cheek. But you still look good. I mean, normal. You still look normal,” she rambled, and God, it was adorable. “We should probably get that cleaned up, though,” she said, pointing to his lip and releasing him.
He watched as she wiped a tear from her cheek and tucked her hair behind her ears before searching the cabin for a first aid kit. But while she banged around cabinet doors and bins, Rafa brought his hand up to his lip and winced, tasting blood. Shit, that hurt. Rafa had gotten in some solid jabs, and they may have won the fight, but not without a few injuries of their own.
“Don’t touch it,” Miri said, opening a first aid kit beside him.
