Page 64 of Dangerous Liaisons

Jesse nodded. “Every U.S. DEA agent and competing drug lord in South America wants Perez. He’s a damn ghost. Lanton didn’t stand a chance of taking down Perez on his own. So he sends in Green Team. If he gets lucky, Perez is killed in the crossfire. Either way, your team goes down and it looks like someone leaked the information. After that, Lanton sits back and waits for me to find Perez.”

“Just like he waited for me to find you,” Cole said.

Jesse nodded. “Then, if I didn’t take Perez down, you would.” She held her breath.

“It’s so…simple,” Cole murmured.

“Brilliant, when you think about it,” she said.

“But why tip Perez we were coming if Lanton wanted us to kill him?” Cole asked. “There’s a second mole.”

Jesse realized the thin polyester rag was smearing more blood than it was soaking up. “This damn thing is useless.”

She rose, went to the stream, and knelt beside it. “With Perez gone, Lanton has nothing to worry about.”

“There’s us,” Cole said.

She grunted a laugh. “What do you bet you’ll join me on the list of traitors?”

Jesse rinsed the rag, then returned to Cole and began cleaning the wound again. The wet rag broke free a large clot of blood. She inspected the open wound more closely. The bullet had furrowed out a row big enough to fit her pinky, but hadn’t lodged in the flesh. Relief flooded through her and she startled at the prick of tears.

She managed a level voice, “Looks like the bullet just grazed you.”

“Flesh wound,” he said. “I told you.”

Jesse shot him an impatient look. “It can still get infected.”

“I’ll live,” he said. “Once we get to civilization, a little penicillin will take care of me.”

“It’s going to make a hell of a scar.”

Cole abruptly grabbed her arm. “If we get cornered again, I want you to run. Getting Perez to bring you back was stupid.”

“Listen, Cole—”

He released her arm, seized her shoulders, and dragged her to within an inch of his face. “Do what I tell you.”

He was so close she could taste his breath. His lips so close, she could almost feel them on hers, soft and warm, powerful and tender. She leaned forward—

Leaves rustled to her right. Cole pushed off the tree, shoving her behind him, but halted when the brilliant red of a Scarlet Macaw’s feathers peeked between the foliage. The parrot pushed through the bushes, the bright yellow of its wings and deep blue of its tail coming into full view before it froze and stared at Jesse and Cole as if it had never seen a human. He probably hadn’t.

Cole looked at her. He looked as surprised as the parrot, and funnier with his pants off—though, that kind of funny she could live with.

“We’d better get going,” she said, and nodded toward his pants.

He grinned. “I’ve been caught with my pants down, but getting caught red handed by a red parrot is a first.”

Jesse turned her face away, afraid he’d read the picture in her mind’s eye of her kneeling in front on his lowered pants and giving him a first.