Read Online Return to Tomorrow by Marisa Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

softly.
    Rachel glanced at the girl in surprise. She had never spoken out that way in front of a man, any man, before. “I show you.” She gestured toward the administration building.
    â€œGo ahead, man. But hurry. We have to get back onthe road.” Brett’s voice was rough-edged, impatient. Rachel looked down at her hands. Already she regretted her suspicious thoughts. It was no business of hers where the money came from. It was destined for a good cause; that was all that should matter.
    â€œWon’t you stay and eat with us?” She panicked for a moment, wondering how she’d stretch the canned chicken and rice that was to have been their dinner. Then she remembered the vegetables she’d bought from one of the refugees’ small garden plots that morning. She could stir-fry those to add to the rice and chicken.
    â€œNo,” Brett said abruptly.
    â€œSome other time.” Billy glanced curiously at his friend. “Thanks for the invite, though.”
    â€œGet that money over to Brother Gabriel,” Brett said.
    â€œCheck. Lead the way, little missy.” Billy grinned down at Ahnle, his teeth very white in his dark face. He motioned her forward, matching his stride to hers. She looked small and fragile alongside him, barely reaching his shoulder. Rachel felt a curious mixture of pride and worry as she watched Ahnle walk away so trustingly.
    â€œThe girl means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
    Rachel swung her head back quickly to find Brett watching her with a predator’s intensity.
    â€œWe…have a lot in common, despite the fact that I’m old enough to be her mother.”
    â€œYou don’t look old enough to be her mother. Her older sister, maybe.” The corner of his mouth quirked upward in the hint of a smile.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous.” Rachel couldn’t help smilinga little herself. “This gray in my hair isn’t some kind of new fashion craze. It’s the real thing.”
    â€œIt’s not gray, more like silver and it suits you.”
    Rachel could only shake her head. If she said anything else it would be dangerously close to flirting. She was alone with Tiger Jackson. There was no moon riding high above, no ruined temple in the jungle to lend a fantasy air to the conversation. It was a perfectly ordinary day, a perfectly ordinary, if unexpected, meeting. She was responsible for whatever she said to this man, whatever she did. She knew that. What she couldn’t understand, wouldn’t understand, was why suddenly her pulse was racing at breakneck speed and her breathing was so shallow and uneven she felt dizzy and light-headed.
    â€œHow are you settling in?” he asked, pushing his hands into the back pockets of his khaki fatigues. The movement stretched the soft cotton of his shirt tight across his chest. A pulse beat slow and steady in the hollow of his throat. He looked away, his dark blue gaze following Billy Todd down the street. Suddenly Rachel found it much easier to take a deep breath.
    â€œI’m settled.” Rachel sidestepped a bicycle carrying two boys and a basket of live, squawking chickens that careened past. “The work’s hard, harder than anything I’ve done for a while, but I like it.”
    He turned to face her. “The facilities are pretty primitive.”
    â€œWe do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
    â€œThere are ten thousand people in this camp, Rachel. The best you can do is still only subsistence.”
    â€œI try. We all try. As hard as we can.”
    He looked past her, out across the camp, as thoughseeing it through her eyes. She felt free to watch him for a moment. Deep lines fanned out from the blue, blue eyes. Even deeper lines bracketed the corners of his mouth. His chin was strong and shadowed by a day’s growth of beard. He looked tough, determined and dangerous, every inch the mercenary, the soldier of fortune he was. Except