Dangerous to Hold by Merline Lovelace

moments, the exhaustion seeping through her bones caused her rigid muscles to relax. She dragged her sleeve across her face to wipe away the moisture generatedby her exertions and closed her eyes, sure she’d be asleep within moments.
    She was wrong.
    As tired as she was, her body wouldn’t, couldn’t, slip into blessed semiconsciousness. Instead, an insidious need crept through her, stiffening her limbs and keeping her eyes wide open in the hazy light.
    The boys’ breathing evened out. Little Teresa whistled once or twice through the gap in her front teeth, then snuggled down in the hammock and grew still.
    Sarah stared up at the rusted tin roof. She listened to the scurry of forest mice scuttling up and down the walls in their never-ending search for insects. From a few feet away came the rumble of deep, sonorous breathing. Not a snore, exactly, but pretty darn close to it.
    Desperately Sarah willed herself to ignore the sounds around her and go to sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to count, as she’d done so often as a child, when her father had gone to some political fund-raiser or another and she’d lain awake in her big, flower-patterned bedroom, waiting for him to come home and read to her.
    At two hundred and forty-seven, she gave up. Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, she rose up on her knees, then inched to her feet. She lifted her skirts and moved as quietly as possible across the hut.
    She didn’t even hear him move. She was just bending toward an object near the wall when a hard hand spun her around. The veil whipped at her face, causing the headdress to tilt haphazardly to one side of her head.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing?” Suspicion blazed in his eyes and singed his low, furious voice. “I thought you said you didn’t know how to use a weapon.”
    â€œI don’t!” Sarah gasped.
    â€œThen why were you reaching for it?”
    Sarah glanced down at the automatic rifle propped against the wall beside the backpack. “I wasn’t reaching for your precious weapon!”
    â€œSo what were you after, lady?”
    No Sister Sarah this time. No crooked grin that coaxed an answering response from her. At this moment, he radiated a hard, cold authority that made Sarah gulp.
    â€œTell me,” he growled, giving her a shake.
    The veil tilted farther over her ear, then fell off completely. He sucked in a quick breath, his narrowed eyes on her hair.
    Sarah raised a hand defensively to the limp, sweat-slicked blond strands. “We…we don’t cut it anymore. We haven’t since Pope John’s Vatican Council.”
    There’d been a Pope John. She was sure of it. And the Italian ambassador had talked at great length about a Vatican Council at one of the dinner parties Sarah had given for her father. She held her breath, waiting for the gringo’s response.
    His flinty gaze shifted to her face. “So you don’t cut your hair anymore. That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing creeping around the hut.”
    She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it. She opened it again, but couldn’t force out the words.
    â€œI’m fast running out of patience,” he warned softly, “and you don’t want to be around when I do.”
    â€œI have to use the boot,” Sarah muttered through clenched teeth.

Chapter 4
    S he needed to use the boot!
    Drawing in a deep breath, Jake ran through his options.
    He could risk taking her outside to go downstream, as the other inhabitants of the camp did. Or he could escort her into the jungle, no doubt with a trail of interested spectators tagging along behind.
    No, options one and two weren’t smart. He’d heard the murmurs among the men when Sister Sarah walked into camp. He’d caught the swift, slashing male assessment they’d given her when she glanced up at him, her eyes gemlike in a pale and dirty face.
    Option three, he could let her use