“Don’t ask her that,” Mathilda murmured in his ear. “You might get a rant.”
“Too late!” Sasha proclaimed, waving the glass-bearing tweezers in the air. “Since you asked, I respect the military, so long as they respect basic rules of humanity. Have you read the Uniform Code of Conduct? I have and…”
“And she’s off,” Mathilda whispered to Lincoln. “Thanks a lot. Just for some backstory, her ex-husband was in the Marines and came back all messed up psychologically.”
Still talking about the Uniform Code of Conduct, Sasha marched to the sink with her little bowl of glass slivers.
“I get it.” He rested his injured arm on his belly. “How long does she usually go on for? Would it be rude if I dozed off again?”
“You didn’t doze off. You passed out. Oh!” She dug in her pocket for his wallet. “Your billfold fell out. I grabbed it before a mongoose could make off with it.”
“Or a menehune.” Robert offered that warning from his station next to the pilot.
But Lincoln ignored them both as he sprang into action. He sat up abruptly, sending the remains of his shirt tumbling to the ground. He snatched the leather billfold from her hand and tucked it into his own pocket. “Thanks.”
Mathilda hadn’t realized a wounded man could move so fast. When he caught her surprised expression, he added, “Identity theft, you know. It’s a concern. A phobia, even.”
“You think the mongoose is going to steal your identity?” Mathilda giggled at the image of a mongoose parading around with Lincoln’s platinum card.
“Uh…didn’t you say something about menehune? They sound dangerous.”
Just then Sasha returned from the sink. She leaned over and felt Lincoln’s forehead.
“I think you might be running a low-grade fever,” she murmured. “How about we get you into a bed? It won’t be much, fair warning. But it’s horizontal and there’s mosquito netting.”
“Sold.” Lincoln scrambled out of the chair, which was a struggle in itself, then did something even more surprising. He actually crouched down to pick up the pieces of his shirt that had fallen to the ground. What self-respecting billionaire did that? “Any chance of a shower?”
“I wouldn’t advise it. Our shower water is from a rain catchment system and it might have some nasty jungle microbes in it. A sponge bath with our filtered water is the best we can do.” Sasha tossed a grin at Mathilda. “How about you do the honors while I get his tent ready?”
Mathilda set her teeth. She really didn’t need any more close physical contact with this annoyingly attractive, if weird, billionaire. “Can we really spare the drinking water?” she muttered.
“I can do my own sponge bath,” Lincoln said firmly. “Just point me to the water.”
He took a step, then swayed again. “I’m fine,” he told them through gritted teeth. “Which way?” Not waiting for an answer, he stalked out the door of the yurt and turned left. Which was the wrong way.
Mathilda sighed. “What did I do to get stuck babysitting a billionaire?”
“Buck up,” said Sasha. “At least he’s sexy.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”
6
Rory slept like a dead person. A thousand mosquitoes could have made it past the netting and he wouldn’t have noticed. Not a single nightmare about the crash woke him up. He didn’t stir until late the next morning, when the tent became so hot he woke up in a sweat.
The first thing he did was check under the pillow for his billfold. He didn’t care about anything in there except his ID. It would be hard to explain why Lincoln Kerr was carrying Rory Baker’s driver’s license. Hell, Lincoln didn’t even carry his own license or any kind of ID. He had a valet who did that.
Which was just one more strange thing about this doomed trip, Rory realized. When did Lincoln ever travel without his entourage—executive assistant, valet, chef? Something had definitely been different about this trip, aside from how it ended.
He lay back on his surprisingly comfortable pillow and gazed around at his surroundings. The tent was a large one, at least twenty feet across. Several cots filled the space, each one with its own mosquito net tucked around it. Was that Lincoln in the cot next to him? He raised himself on one elbow to peer through the gauzy netting. His boss was still sleeping peacefully.
Leaving Rory to take care of everything. Typical.
He needed a plan. But before he came up with a plan, he needed to know what he was dealing with. Right now, he wasn’t sure it would be safe for them to emerge from this jungle and return to normal life. Too many things weren’t adding up. Why the barebones crew? Why the insistence on flying despite the conditions?
That was why he’d rejected the offer of a Medivac and an emergency call on the sat phone. Right now, he was pretty sure they were safer here, at least until he found out what Lincoln was up to.
The black box. Crap. The SyberJet had one, of course, as was mandated by federal law. Unless it had been destroyed, it sent out a signal that could be traced. Normally, that would be a good thing. But with their current sketchy situation, not so much.
