Line of Fire by Cindy Dees Page A

short bursts.
    He listened intently.
    There it was again. A rustling. Sudden silence from the birds. Three, maybe four, people moving off to their left on a parallel course. They lay there for many minutes, long after the noise had faded away and the birds had resumed their regular cacophony of sound.
    He looked down into Kimberly’s terrified eyes. “You okay?” he murmured.
    “I’m slightly crushed, but otherwise fine, thank you.”
    He rolled off of her immediately. “Sorry. It’s part of my training to put myself between hostile shooters and whoever I’m protecting. I do it without thinking.”
    She gazed at him intently. “You jumped on top of me to shield me?”
    Inexplicably he was embarrassed. “Well, yeah,” he answered gruffly.
    “That’s so sweet.”
    “Honey, I’m a lot of things,” he growled, “but sweet sure as shootin’ ain’t one of them.”
    She laughed lightly and sat up. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
    He stood up cautiously and had a look around before reaching down to help her to her feet.
    “What’s this?” she murmured at his extended hand. “Are you actually displaying civilized manners to me?”
    His attention jerked from the jungle around them to her. “Contrary to what you seem to think, I am not a Neanderthal,” he bit out.
    “Oh, so it’s just kissing me that brings out that side of you?”
    He scowled at her smiling face and spun way. What could he say to that? Kissing her did bring out the caveman in him.
    What did he care anyway about what she thought of his manners or lack of them? His job was to get her the hell out of this jungle, send her back to her hoity-toity life, and get on with his.
    He picked up the pace, angling their course away from the last position of the people they’d just encountered. They walked until late in the afternoon, stopping only to drink water when they came across little pools of it, and to catch their breath. He didn’t even take time to smear her in the mud-and-grass camo he’d promised her. Visibility wasn’t their problem. Time was.
    Tex stopped abruptly when he noticed a tall cluster of dried mud towers off to their right. Bingo. He veered toward the man-high, cone-shaped structures.
    “What in the world is that?” Kimberly asked as they approached it.
    “Supper,” he replied jovially.
    “We’re eating mud for supper?” she asked skeptically.
    “Nope, we’re eating the termite grubs inside.”
    Shock apparently rendered her speechless and she watched in rather comic dismay as he found a long, sturdy stick and began digging at the base of the tower. When he’d dug down about three feet, he found what he was looking for. Fat, white, inch-long, termite larvae. He picked up several and held them out to her.
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” she declared in disbelief.
    “Not at all. They’re a good source of protein.” He popped one in his mouth and swallowed it. “No need to chew it. Just toss it down like a pill.”
    She glared at him darkly. “You’re doing this to get even with me for crawling all over you last night, aren’t you?”
    “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he answered evenly.
    “You know exactly what I’m talking about. This is petty and it’s beneath you, Tex Monroe. I insist that you get me some decent food to eat.”
    He stood up to his full height slowly. “Kimberly, this is a South American jungle. The Russian Tea Room is not just around the corner. If I had all damn day to hunt for something tasty, and I don’t, I might be able to come up with something higher class than this, like maybe a rat, for you to eat.”
    Her delicate jaw set in stubborn lines.
    He’d had just about enough of her aristocratic, holier-than-thou routine. He stepped close and growled down at her through clenched jaws, “There are people, probably a lot of them, hunting us right now. This situation is dangerous and the cards are stacked way against us. I’m out here, completely