Midnight Rainbow by Linda Howard Page B

rained almost every day, of course, so it didn’t take a fortune-teller to predict rain, but she hadn’t heard the thunder that usually preceded it.
    He was back in only a short while, taking her arm and leading her to a small rise, where a scattering of boulderstestified to Costa Rica’s volcanic origin. After taking his knife from his belt, he cut small limbs and lashed them together with vines, then propped one end of his contraption up by wedging sturdier limbs under the corners. Producing a rolled-up tarp from his backpack like a magician, he tied the tarp over the crude lean-to, making it waterproof. “Well, crawl in and get comfortable,” he growled when Jane simply stood there, staring in astonishment at the shelter he’d constructed in just a few minutes.
    Obediently she crawled in, groaning with relief as she shrugged out of her backpack and relaxed her aching muscles. Her ears caught the first distant rumble of thunder; whatever he did for a living, the man certainly knew his way around the jungle.
    Grant ducked under the shelter, too, relieving his shoulders of the weight of his own backpack. He had apparently decided that while they were waiting out the rain they might as well eat, because he dug out a couple of cans of field rations.
    Jane sat up straight and leaned closer, staring at the cans. “What’s that?”
    â€œFood.”
    â€œWhat kind of food?”
    He shrugged. “I’ve never looked at it long enough to identify it. Take my advice: don’t think about it. Just eat it.”
    She put her hand on his as he started to open the cans. “Wait. Why don’t we save those for have-to situations?”
    â€œThis is a have-to situation,” he grunted. “We have to eat.”
    â€œYes, but we don’t have to eat that !”
    Exasperation tightened his hard features. “Honey, we either eat this, or two more cans exactly like them!”
    â€œOh, ye of little faith,” she scoffed, dragging her ownbackpack closer. She began delving around in it, and in a moment produced a small packet wrapped in a purloined towel. With an air of triumph she unwrapped it to expose two badly smashed but still edible sandwiches, then returned to the backpack to dig around again. Her face flushed with success, she pulled out two cans of orange juice. “Here!” she said cheerfully, handing him one of the cans. “A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a can of orange juice. Protein, carbohydrates and vitamin C. What more could we ask for?”
    Grant took the sandwich and the pop-top can she offered him, staring at them in disbelief. He blinked once, then an amazing thing happened: he laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh. It was rather rusty sounding, but it revealed his straight white teeth and made his amber eyes crinkle at the corners. The rough texture of that laugh gave her a funny little feeling in her chest. It was obvious that he rarely laughed, that life didn’t hold much humor for him, and she felt both happy that she’d made him laugh and sad that he’d had so little to laugh about. Without laughter she would never have kept her sanity, so she knew how precious it was.
    Chewing on his sandwich, Grant relished the gooiness of the peanut butter and the sweetness of the jelly. So what if the bread was a little stale? The unexpected treat made such a detail unimportant. He leaned back and propped himself against his backpack, stretching his long legs out before him. The first drops of rain began to patter against the upper canopy. It would be impossible for anyone to track them through the downpour that was coming, even if those guerrillas had an Indian tracker with them, which he doubted. For the first time since he’d seen the helicopter that morning, he relaxed, his highly developed sense of danger no longer nagging him.
    He finished the sandwich and poured the rest of the orange juice down his throat, then glanced