“Er,” Miri stammered, her cheeks flushed, “but there’s more stuff in there.”
She lifted the bench lid, then immediately scrambled out of the way to avoid getting bowled over by Felix and Logan as they lunged for the food.
“Score,” Felix said, passing food back and forth with Logan and sharing bites.
With the two of them thoroughly distracted, Miri circled behind Rafa, then stole a quick kiss. Nothing but a peck, really. But there wouldn’t likely be another opportunity for a while, so he’d take whatever he could get.
“So, what’s the plan?” Logan said, mouth half-full with a piece of bread.
“Looks like we’ve got another half day on this boat,” Rafa said, handing a map over to him.
“And after that?” Felix asked.
After that? Oh, Rafa had grand plans for the evening.
Nice hot meal. Nice hot shower, perhapswithMiri. And maybe, just maybe, Pringles for dessert.
They pulled up to thebase camp by midafternoon. Almost like a village in the trees, the resort campus was a collection of thatched-roof huts on stilts, connected by wooden platformed walkways, with a larger structure connecting them in the center. It looked like the body of a spider with all the individual cabins webbing away from its legs.
The structures sat in the middle of a wide clearingsurrounded by strangler figs and giant Brazil nut trees, but Mother Nature had already started to reclaim the resort. Lianas covered in moss and epiphytes grew from the nearby tree branches, twisting and winding their way around the boardwalk railings. Bird nests hung from beneath the huts. Although the rainy season was coming, the resort hadn’t yet flooded. But in a few short weeks, the ground would be completely submerged, overtaken by the adjacent river, necessitating the raised walkways. A family of capybaras watched them from the other side of the river, surely waiting for an opportunity to poke around the grounds for some food scraps. Every inch of this place was a reminder thattheywere the intruders. The forest was only allowing them to visit.
The expedition team gathered to greet them at the river’s edge. They may have been strangers, but Rafa had never been so happy to see a group of strangers as he was now. Anissa quickly whisked Miri away with her clipboard in hand, but not without Miri tossing Rafa one last sweet, sexy smile, signaling that they’d meet up again soon. That look gave Rafa the boost he needed to get through the rest of the day. Because as soon as night fell, he’d find an opportunity to get Miri alone, and hopefully this time without Felix and Logan sleeping beside them.
Rafa tied the boat to a stump on the edge of the river as the rest of the crew helped unload. Once they finished, he set off to his cabin for a shower and a change of clothes. Each cabin had its own bed and bathroom but was otherwise bare bones. They didn’t need much. And hopefully, they wouldn’t be here long. Fortunately, his bag seemed to have made it with the other van and was already waiting in his room when he got there. After cleaning up and doing an inventory of his belongings, he headedback out to the resort grounds to start working on documenting the expedition. Sabotage or not, he still had an article to write, after all.
He meandered through the group, listening to their stories and taking notes. Most of it wouldn’t make its way into the piece, but a journalist didn’t always know what details would necessarily be important later, so he jotted everything down, weaving in and out of conversations. Word had spread fast. He heard lots of whispers and rumors. Questions about what had happened with Quinn. Worries about Vautour.
Maybe Rafa didn’t have to do anything to sabotage this expedition. The expedition seemed to be sabotaging itself.
It sure would make things easier between him and Miri if that were the case.
Right then, Felix came running up to him, waving the satellite phone in his hand.
“Rafa, there’s a call. It’s for you,” he said.
A call? On the satellite phone?
“Are you sure it’s for me?” Rafa asked.
“He says it’s your father.”
His father? How in the—?
Rafa glanced around, almost as if he half expected his dad to pop out from behind a fern and yell, “Surprise!” No, that was absurd. He took the phone and walked several feet away from Felix.
“Dad?” Rafa asked, wrinkling his brow.
“Rafael?”
“Where are you?”
“What do you mean, where am I? I’m at home.”
“In Montreal?”
“Of course. Where else would I be?”
“Well, is everything okay? How did you get this number?” Rafa asked.
