“I told you I never wanted to ever see you again!”

Ty’s heart slammed against his rib cage like a punch being delivered by a boxer. The woman glaring at him like an Amazon warrior was Catt. His Catt.

It couldn’t be! Ty tried to take a deep breath, but it was impossible. Ten years ago, when he was just a shavetail lieutenant fresh out of the naval academy, he’d fallen hopelessly in love with a red-haired beauty. Was this the same woman?

Then Ty saw the desperation in her narrowed blue eyes, the anguish in the way her full mouth compressed. She didn’t need to say a thing. He knew this was his woman.

His heart reeled. His emotions exploded violently within him when he realized the woman he’d loved and lost so long ago was now standing in front of him.

And she was furious….

Don’t miss HUNTER’S PRIDE (SE#1274), the next exciting adventure in MORGAN’S MERCENARIES: THE HUNTERS series, coming in Special Edition.

Hunter’s Woman
Lindsay McKenna

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Lindsay McKenna

Silhouette Special Edition

Captive of Fate #82

* Heart of the Eagle #338

* A Measure of Love #377

* Solitaire #397

Heart of the Tiger #434

† A Question of Honor #529

† No Surrender #535

† Return of a Hero #541

Come Gentle the Dawn #568

† Dawn of Valor #649

** No Quarter Given #667

** The Gauntlet #673

** Under Fire #679

†† Ride the Tiger #721

†† One Man’s War #727

†† Off Limits #733

‡ Heart of the Wolf #818

‡ The Rogue #824

‡ Commando #830

** Point of Departure #853

° Shadows and Light #878

° Dangerous Alliance #884

° Countdown #890

‡‡ Morgan’s Wife #986.

‡‡ Morgan’s Son #992

‡‡ Morgan’s Rescue #998

‡‡ Morgan’s Marriage #1005

White Wolf #1135

◊ Wild Mustang Woman #1166

◊ Stallion Tamer #1173

◊ The Cougar #1179

Δ Heart of the Hunter #1214

Δ Hunter’s Woman #1255

Silhouette Shadows

Hangar 13 #27

Silhouette Intimate Moments

Love Me Before Dawn #44

Silhouette Desire

Chase the Clouds #75

Wilderness Passion #134

Too Near the Fire #165

Texas Wildcat #184

Red Tail #208

Silhouette Books

Silhouette Christmas Stories 1990

“Always and Forever”

Lovers Dark and Dangerous 1994

“Seeing Is Believing”

Morgan’s Mercenaries: Heart of the Jaguar

Harlequin Historicals

Sun Woman #71

Lord of Shadowhawk #108

King of Swords #125

Brave Heart #171

LINDSAY McKENNA

is a practicing homeopath and emergency medical technician on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. She comes from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family and is a member of the Wolf Clan. Dividing her energies between alternative medicine and writing, she feels books on and about love are the greatest positive healing force in the world. She lives with her husband, David, at La Casa de Madre Tierra, near Sedona.

A letter from That Special Woman, Dr. Catt Alborak:

Dear Readers,

I like to think I’m a woman with a mission in life to make this world a safer place. When I decided to be a crusader for this purpose, I knew I was going to take it on the nose—and I have. But I’m one of those tough Texas women, and you just can’t keep us down! I’ve worked hard for every scrap of anything I’ve ever done in this life. And in my line of work—virology—I’m up against viruses that would just as soon kill me as they would the patients I’m trying to save. I like to think my hardscrabble life growing up on a Texas ranch prepared me for the challenges I face every day as a doctor.

Life is always hectic, because I could be called at any moment to hop on a plane and head anywhere in the world to combat a deadly microbe. But I love it! I love the danger. I like the challenge of pitting my intuition, my heart and gut, against killer diseases.

On my latest mission, all hell has broken loose. The last person I expected to see when I got down to Brazil was Ty Hunter. Suddenly my past has crashed into my present! I don’t know if I can walk on that saber blade between my work and my personal life now that Ty is watching my every move. Life has suddenly gotten dangerous, not only physically, but emotionally. I just hope I can hold myself together long enough to save the people of this village—and keep myself from succumbing to Ty as I foolishly did once before.

Yours,

Dr. Catt Alborak

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Sit down, Ty, I’ve got some very bad news for you.” Morgan Trayhern scowled and placed his hand on the back of his chair, his fingers tightening perceptibly on the dark brown leather. He had asked Ty to join him here in the war room, hidden deep below an innocuous-looking turn-of-the-century Victorian on the outskirts of Philipsburg, Montana. Morgan saw the wary look the tall, tightly muscled ex-marine officer gave him as he quickly closed the door to the inner office where all planning took place for Perseus missions.

“That bad?” One corner of Ty’s mouth lifted derisively, in more of a pained expression than a smile. He noted that Morgan looked very tired; there were shadows beneath the older man’s eyes, and his mouth was tightly set against the emotions he was clearly holding back. Although Morgan was dressed casually in a pair of jeans, cowboy boots and a long-sleeved white shirt, nothing could hide his military background. Ty was glad he’d been in the Marine Corps, too. It was something they shared, something good and solid, something that could be counted on. Ty knew that if anyone could be trusted, it was Morgan.

Morgan pursed his lips as Ty took the rustic pine chair in front of his desk. The leather seat cushion creaked as he sat down.

“Two words I hoped I’d never have to utter,” Morgan admitted with a sigh as he walked around his own chair and sat. Resting his arms on top of the highly polished red cedar desk, he ran his fingers through his short black hair, now peppered with white strands.

Ty frowned. “Which two words? I can think of a lot of bad things that start with two words.” When Ty saw the various top-secret faxes, e-mails and courier service information scattered atop the desk, he realized why Morgan looked so tired. He obviously hadn’t been doing much sleeping. As haggard as Morgan appeared, Ty saw a glint in his eyes. He recognized that look. It was the look of a predator on the trail of his quarry. At heart, Morgan was the ultimate hunter-warrior, and a planner and catalyst to boot. It was one of many reasons Ty was glad he’d left the Marine Corps and come to work for Perseus, the covert government agency Morgan ran. Maybe, as Ty’s younger brother, Reid, once said, all the men at Perseus were throwbacks to the era of cavemen, true hunter-warriors who knew instinctively how to track, hunt and kill their quarry.

In the case of Perseus, the quarry was always a dangerous criminal element somewhere in the world. Heaven knew, there were plenty of evil men who wanted to bring harm to people, communities, or even countries. It didn’t bother Ty that he was a hunter-warrior. He lived for it, thrived on the danger, just like his three brothers, who also worked for Perseus, did.

“Black Dawn?” Ty wondered aloud as he watched Morgan sort haphazardly through the missives on his desk.

“You’re damned close. How about biological attack?”

Ty’s straight, dark brown brows dipped instantly and his hands came to rest on the arms of the pine chair, his fingers automatically curling around the warm wood. “What?” The word came out as a harsh whisper tinged with disbelief.

“You heard right,” Morgan muttered, pulling out a couple of papers and thrusting them across the desk in Ty’s direction. “We think that Black Dawn has chosen what they consider a ‘safe’ target to test out their goods before they assault a much larger city. Take a look at this. It’s from the Brazilian government.”

Ty rapidly scanned the report Morgan handed him. It was in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil. Luckily, he was proficient in it. “This is a handwritten report from a backwoodsman by the name of Rafe Antonio, who works for that government,” he said as he slowly tried to make sense of the scrawl. “He’s saying that people in one of the villages he has responsibility for, of the Juma tribe, have suddenly come down with a mysterious illness. It’s killing them off within forty-eight to seventy-two hours of infection. He’s asking for…” Ty looked up at Morgan “…your help? Not the Brazilian government’s? What’s this all about?”

Morgan grunted and sat back in his chair, which creaked in protest. “We’ve got moles all over the world, wherever we suspect things can go very badly wrong in a very short time. Brazil is one of them. Their government is trying its best, but they’ve got their problems, too,” he continued wearily. “Unbeknownst to the Brazilians, Rafe is our operative and mole. He also works for the CIA. From time to time, if he ferrets out anything interesting, he passes it on to Perseus. His report came in yesterday.” Rubbing his face tiredly, Morgan rasped, “I suspect Black Dawn used an airplane, flew over that village, dropped a load of some deadly biological material and is monitoring to see if it worked and how well.”

“Rafe suspects Black Dawn?” Ty asked, rapidly perusing the rest of the report.

“No, I do. All Rafe knows is that the natives of one of the villages he’s taken care of for years are suddenly dropping dead like flies. He’s been in the Manaus region for ten years. He knows the area and its inhabitants better than anyone. Actually, he’s been keeping tabs for the CIA on the cocaine plantations that are springing up all over the Amazon basin. The CIA then informs the Brazilian government, which does nothing about them because they just don’t have the logistical support and trained manpower to go after them.”

“So, Antonio functions as your eyes and ears out there on the rapidly growing drug trade?”

“Among other things, yes. Because Rafe works for the city of Manaus in that state of Brazil, he’s in a very valuable position. He’s alarmed that the Juma are dying like this. That second report came in hours ago from him. Right now he’s heading down the Amazon River from Manaus with a load of antibiotics he got from a local hospital, to try and save some lives. You can see where he mentions that the chief of the village told him a plane flew very low and slowly over the village and ‘spit upon them.’ That was the old chief’s word, spit. I think it was an aerosol spray that was released.”

Ty’s brow wrinkled as he sat there and read through the second, even more hastily written report. Rafe Antonio’s writing left a lot to be desired, but Ty could pick out the salient points of the document. Looking up when he finished, he asked, “What else have you put into motion on this?”

Smiling a little, Morgan said, “I called OID—the Office of Infectious Diseases—immediately because of what we suspect. I know you know Dr. Casey Morron, the medical doctor who is number two in charge of the Hot Zone and other outbreaks around the world. She has sent her best field epidemic specialist down to Manaus.” Morgan looked at his watch. “Chances are they are getting ready to land there by now. A tug is to take them downriver to the Juma village. The OID team is being headed up by Dr. Catt Alborak. She’s got three other people working with her. They know how to handle a field assignment like this during an outbreak.”

“But do they know it could be a biological attack?” Ty asked in concern.

“I haven’t told them yet,” Morgan said, “I want to keep this under wraps until we’re sure our target is Black Dawn.”

“And the Brazilian government? Are they in on this?”

“Not yet. We need to get the OID team in place, make a diagnosis, send blood and tissue samples back to OID headquarters in Atlanta, so that we know what the hell is happening first.”

“Is there some chance this is really an epidemic outbreak and not the work of Black Dawn?”

Morgan shrugged and gazed at the map of Brazil behind him on the wall. “It’s possible, but after that strategic feint they employed against us earlier, which made us think they were going after the Ebola virus in the Congo, I think this is real.”

“Gut hunch?” Ty knew how much Morgan operated off that primal survival sense deep within him. Hell, Ty did, too. It had saved his worthless life many times over.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want me to play in this sandbox?” Ty grinned a little as Morgan rallied from his teasing.

“I want you to join the OID team just as soon as humanly possible. I’ve got the Perseus jet waiting at the Philipsburg airport right now for you. They’re fueling her as we speak. You’ve got the kind of background necessary for this. Your primary mission is to protect Dr. Alborak. She’s our point person in the field. We are going to be relying heavily on her diagnosis, what she sees and observes. We need to keep her alive and out of danger while she does the necessary testing in order to get this info back to OID headquarters for verification one way or another.”

“In other words, I’m her glorified bird dog?”

“Yes. She’s not to suspect who you work for. For legitimate cover, OID, through Casey, is sending you down as her special assistant. Your background includes field work and you know how to draw blood, take samples and so on. No one is to know what you’re really looking for. I don’t want to alarm anyone in the village, nor do I want anything getting out that we’ve got a Perseus operative down there. That would tip off the Black Dawn. It could spring them into action before they’re ready—or we’re ready—and I don’t want to risk that.”

“You really do think Black Dawn is working up to an aerosol attack on a major city, don’t you?”

Morgan closed his eyes and kneaded the bridge of his nose gently with his thumb and index finger. “Yes,” he whispered finally.

The heaviness in the room permeated Ty’s being. Some of the initial excitement he’d felt dissolved. The anguish in Morgan’s voice told him of the terror the man was feeling over the possibility. “We all know that a terrorist attack with a biological weapon is going to happen eventually, Morgan,” Ty said finally. “Anyone in the military or CIA knows that. This isn’t anything new.”

“No,” Morgan admitted as he allowed his hand to drop from his face. He opened his eyes and studied Ty. “But my gut tells me Black Dawn is going to attack the U.S.A. We’re going to be their prime target sooner or later.”

“It makes sense.”

“Exactly.” He sighed. “It’s just a matter of time and what city. That’s what we’ve got to find out. Somehow, we’ve got to get ahead of them on this curve. They sucker punched us once with their Congo bluff, and we fell for it.”

Ty sat quietly. He could see the tumultuous feelings reflected in Morgan’s face, the pain in his eyes. “Depending upon what they use, hundreds or maybe thousands of people could die,” he said at last.

“Yes,” Morgan replied, “and that’s why it’s so important to get down to Brazil and find out what was used. Knowing at least that much will be a help.” He tapped his fingers on the cedar desk. “Not much, but a help….”

Ty rose. “You got the mission brief prepared for me? I’ll get out to the airport pronto.”

Morgan nodded. “What there is of it. My secretary had a helluva time collecting stuff last minute. She managed to scare up photos of two of the four OID team members. Unfortunately, Dr. Alborak’s isn’t in there, but you’ll know her. She’s the only one with red hair on the outbreak team.”

Ty brightened momentarily as he took the file from Morgan. “Redhead, eh?”

“Yeah. You like redheads?”

“My favorite,” Ty said with a chuckle.

“Well, don’t be too happy about this particular redhead,” Morgan warned him, one eyebrow moving upward as he looked in his direction. “Around OID, Dr. Alborak is known as a Texas hellion. She doesn’t put up with fools, from what I understand from Casey. This woman is a one-woman army. She shoots from the hip. She’s got no diplomacy. She’s all action and demands results. You get in her way and don’t operate at the speed of light like she does, she’ll chew you up and spit you out before you can say boo.”

“Sounds like a military-officer type.”

Morgan said, “She’s not, but she could be. Casey thinks highly of her. She said if things get bad, Dr. Alborak is the person you want at your back to protect you.”

Grinning slightly, Ty said, “Sounds like a woman right down my alley. I like Type A go-getters.”

Snorting, Morgan rubbed his watering eyes. “Today OID had a major computer crash involving their personnel department. I have nothing to give you on Dr. Alborak presently, just what Casey told me. By the time they get the software problem fixed, you’ll be down in Manaus and on her trail.”

“That’s okay,” Ty said, “I’m sure with this kind of description, I won’t have a problem knowing who she is or how she operates.”

“Casey said to warn you that Dr. Alborak is intense, focused, stubborn and bullheaded. She’s also got one hell of a temper if you cross her.”

“Must be that Texas breeding?” Ty chuckled.

Morgan lightened momentarily. “Maybe. But in this arena, we need someone with Dr. Alborak’s gutsiness. Casey said she can shoot and spit with the best of ’em. I guess that’s a Texas euphemism?”

Ty headed toward the door. “I don’t know. I’m from Colorado, remember? But Texans do have a helluva reputation.”

Morgan raised his brows. “Just don’t tangle with this hellion, all right? Work with her, not against her. I just hope she can take well-meaning direction from you.”

“My taste in women has always run to the independent types,” Ty assured him smoothly. “I’ll find a bridgehead with Dr. Alborak and make it work. Too much is at stake not to.”

Morgan raised his hand. “Rafe is expecting you. He’s the only one who knows who you really are. He’ll do all he can to assist you. Just ask. Trust him and rely on what he knows. After ten years, he knows that area like the back of his hand. Literally.”

“Yes, sir.” Ty opened the door. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Come home in one piece,” Morgan growled in warning. “Or else…”

Nodding, Ty quietly closed the door behind him. As he moved through the darkened passage to concrete stairs that led up to the first floor of the house, his heartbeat quickened. He reveled in the opportunity to be on a mission where so much was at stake. He had no idea what he was going to step into. If Black Dawn had delivered a deadly biological disease via aerosol spraying, that meant he and everyone on the OID team were also in jeopardy until they could verify what it was.

As he reached the top of the stairs, opened the door and stepped into a carpeted room at the rear of the house, Ty wondered what Texas hellion Catt Alborak was like. A brief smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. She might be the best part of this mission. Was she married? He resisted the temptation to open her file. Once he was on board the Perseus jet, he’d sift through all the information, commit it to memory and then try to get some sleep during the long journey south to Brazil.

Stepping out on the ornately carved front porch and automatically eyeing the thick cape of snow on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains rising above the tiny hamlet of Philipsburg, Ty smiled. He was between relationships. Dr. Alborak sounded alluring. He liked a woman who knew her own mind, who had a definite sense of herself, who she was and where she was going in life. And if she was a little spicy and hotheaded, well, all the better. Ty liked women who challenged him. And he never ran from a fight. He stepped off the porch into the glare of bright sunlight. Putting on a pair of sunglasses, he hurried to a dark blue car parked out front.

As he settled in the back seat, the driver took off for the airport. Frowning, Ty amended his earlier musings. He had run from one relationship, he remembered now. A twinge in his heart made him unconsciously rub his chest. But that was a long time ago. He was thirty-one now and that relationship had happened ten years before. Long gone, but somehow, never forgotten. With a sigh, Ty opened up the file, his curiosity getting the better of him. The facts collected there were meager, but one of them piqued his interest. Dr. Alborak had attended Stanford University. So had the woman he’d loved so many years ago. Ty considered that a sign of good luck, if nothing else. He smiled to himself. Soon he’d be on Brazilian soil again. And he’d be facing this infamous Texas hellion in the flesh….

“Where the hell is that tugboat!?” Catt Alborak paced up and down the old, weathered wooden dock that jutted fifty feet out into the muddy headwaters of the Amazon. To her right was the distant skyline of Manaus. To her left was jungle. She saw her assistant, Maria Sanchez, pick up the cellular phone. Standing for a moment, her fists jammed on her hips, Catt glared up and down the river. There were a number of docks scattered along the bank, and plenty of tugs and tugboat captains. But where was their tug? Arrangements had been made before they arrived. A tug was to meet them at dock six and take them downriver for five hours, to the affected Juma village, where people were dying from some unknown bacterial or viral epidemic. Damn! People were suffering, and she and her team were standing here like they didn’t have a better thing in the world to do. Frustration ate viciously at Catt. She was never in good humor when things went wrong. She didn’t get paid to sit back, smile and be passive. No, responsibility for the lives of her team and those they were racing to help rested squarely on her shoulders.

Nostrils flaring, Catt started pacing again. Taking off her sunglasses, she stared out across the massive, slow-moving expanse of the Amazon. Two major rivers combined at Manaus, the largest city in northern Brazil. Once, there had been a very rich rubber trade here, which had made this city experience an economic boom for the first half the century. As the need for natural rubber died, so had the industry. Since then, Manaus had remade itself into a very profitable white-collar city, and with its high-tech computer companies, it was a leader in communications in South America.

“I could scream,” Catt muttered as she moved back to her team waiting on the bank. All around them were portable trunks filled with dry ice and antibiotics, boxes of lab equipment and laptop computers. The software contained information on every possible epidemic. The database would help them as they collected information about symptoms that would, she hoped, help them identify the killer of the Juma people. All would be needed to fight this epidemic. If they got to the Juma village at all!

“We’ve got to get a tug,” she said firmly to Maria, who had just gotten off the cell phone.

“You aren’t going to like this, Catt. The man who was hired to take us said he won’t do it. He doesn’t care how much money is involved. Word’s gotten out that half the people in the Juma village have died in the last two days. He’s scared,” Maria said unhappily, “and he said he loves his wife and kids too much to take us out there.”

“He’s afraid he’ll get infected and die,” Andy Foltz said. “Understandable, but that puts us in a hell of a fix.”

Catt’s patience was rapidly thinning. She ran her fingers through her short red hair in an aggravated motion. Her eyes burned with anger. “Maria, you call the city of Manaus. Get the mayor on the line. I’ll talk to him. I’m not going to beat around the bush. We’ll go to the top and take ’em apart one at a time if that’s what we have to do in order to get down there to help those people.”

Maria nodded sympathetically and rapidly punched in some numbers. She was of Hispanic blood and knew Spanish, which was a close cousin of Portuguese. Catt knew some Spanish because her father’s spread near Del Rio, Texas, was right across the border from Mexico. Still, Maria’s command of the language was stronger, and whether Catt liked it or not, Maria was her intercessor at the moment. Unfortunately, Maria wasn’t pushy like her, and Catt knew in order to get Manaus officials to help them, push was going to come to shove.

None of the team spoke Brazil’s first language, and they were at a decided disadvantage because of it. Now, Catt wished fervently that OID had either sent along an interpreter or brought in someone with field experience who spoke the language. It was too late now.

Catt saw a cab moving rapidly toward them, much like the one that had dropped off them and their medical supplies. This dock was out in the middle of nowhere. They’d been waiting for this tug for over an hour. A precious hour during which they could have been heading down the Amazon toward those suffering people.

Andy Foltz and Steve Tucker sat on large olive-green metal lockers, looking glum. They were just as frustrated as she was at not being able to get to those dying people. Aggravated to the point of blowing her infamous temper, Catt moved quickly back onto the dock. Immune to the beauty surrounding her, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her beige slacks as she walked quickly, her head down and filled with the turmoil of how to get out of this jam. Hearing the squealing of brakes, she stopped, turned and looked to where the asphalt ended, about a tenth of a mile from where she stood. The cab was delivering a passenger to their dock. Who? The tugboat captain? An official envoy from Manaus to help them? The man who emerged from the cab was tall and well muscled. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, jeans and work boots, from what she could tell at this distance.

He looked vaguely familiar, Catt thought, then shrugged off the notion. Worried for the dying people downriver, she turned her attention back to them and their ongoing plight. She shouldn’t just be standing here! She and her team should be on their way downstream right now. She snarled unhappily under her breath, spun around and headed back toward her team again. Maybe this man really was an official come to help them, someone who could get them out of this miserable mess. Catt wasn’t sure, but he looked like he knew what he was doing just by his proud carriage and the confident way he walked toward them. Her heart skipped a beat. Who was he? She frowned and halted near her team, waiting impatiently for him.

The way he walked reminded Catt of a lithe animal—a jaguar, perhaps. The man had dark brown hair, cut short and close to his skull. He wore sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes, which to her were the most important feature in a person’s face. Catt knew from experience that looking into someone’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. What was this man hiding? Suddenly the sun was masked behind veils of misty clouds that moved sluggishly above them. The heat was oppressive and she was perspiring profusely beneath her white cotton shirt. Still, she couldn’t help but notice the way his own shirt clung to his upper body, shouting of his athletic shape. His chest was well sprung, his arms lean and tightly muscled, the dark hair thick upon them.

It was his face, though, that drew her gaze—an oval face with a hard, uncompromising jaw. His mouth was pleasant to look at—full, with the corners tipped slightly upward, so she knew he smiled a lot. Maybe he was a joker, someone who liked to laugh. His brows were thick and straight. There wasn’t a handsome bone in this man’s face, Catt decided. Instead, it was a face carved by crisis; she could see the heavy, indented lines between his brows and the slashes at either side of his pursed lips. He hadn’t shaved for a while and the darkness of his beard gave him a dangerous look, warning her that he was someone to be wary of. Who was he? She didn’t like the way he strode confidently toward them, as if he knew them. But unless he was a tugboat captain or someone who could get them one, Catt didn’t have time for him—at all.

He carried a large canvas bag slung over his broad shoulder. Olive-green in color, it reminded Catt of the military. In fact, she realized now, he walked like he was in the military. Her mind spun with questions. Had he been sent down by OID? Or some other governmental agency? Observing the deep tan of his skin, Catt wondered if he was an official from Manaus come to help them. Warning bells went off within her. She was no stranger to CIA or military types, because she frequently rubbed elbows with them out in the field, especially during outbreaks in foreign countries. They were instrumental and necessary—even if they were often arrogant about the crucial role they played in helping Catt get medical attention to those who suffered.

This man most definitely had an air of danger around him. She could sense it. And why, oh why, did he look so familiar to her? Catt found her attention torn between getting them downstream to the people who needed her and searching her memory in regard to this stranger.

The rest of her group stood up in anticipation as the stranger approached. Catt lifted her chin at an imperious angle and allowed all her internal radar systems, which she relied on so heavily, to focus directly on him. Her heart sped up. The shape of his face, that arrogant, confident walk…she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him. But from where? Where? She was almost ready to hurl the question at him, demand to know his name when he slowed down and took off his sunglasses. His icy-cold, cinnamon-colored eyes locking onto hers made Catt gasp.

Everyone in the team heard her strangled cry. They all turned in unison, bewilderment and surprise on their features.

Catt’s eyes widened. Her hands fell nervelessly from her hips. Her lips parted. And then her anger surged through her like a volcanic explosion, her voice cutting through the lazy, humid afternoon air.

“You bastard. I told you I never wanted to see you again!”

Chapter Two

Ty’s heart slammed against his rib cage with the force of a punch being delivered by a boxer. He halted, his mouth dropping open before he quickly snapped it shut. The woman glaring at him like an Amazon warrior was Cathy Simpson. Not Dr. Catt Alborak. Or was it? His mind spun. Fingers tightening around the dark glasses in his left hand, he met and held her sizzling glare.

“Cathy Simpson?” he growled, on guard. It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t. Ty tried to take in a deep breath, but it was impossible. Ten years ago, when he was just a shavetail lieutenant, fresh out of the naval academy, he’d fallen hopelessly in love with a red-haired woman who was going to medical school at Stanford University. Was this Cathy? She’d changed. Her once-long, gloriously thick hair had been cut short and her athletic frame had filled out. She was more beautiful, if that was possible.

She’d winced visibly when he’d called out her name, and now Ty saw the pain, anger and desperation in her narrowed blue eyes, the anguish in the way her full mouth compressed. More than anything, he saw in her expression the devastating effect of his sudden appearance. She didn’t need to say a thing. He knew this was Cathy Simpson.

As he stood there, every set of eyes on him, Ty felt horribly vulnerable in front of this group of strangers. His heart reeled. His emotions exploded violently within him when he realized the woman he’d loved and lost so long ago was standing here, now, in front of him—and that she was furious. What kind of torturous trick was being played on him—and her? Ty saw all too clearly that Catt, as she called herself now, wanted nothing to do with him. Her face had flushed a dull red, and now that it was whitening, he recalled all too well her hair-trigger temper. Whenever she turned pale again, that meant all hell was going to break loose. This time at him.

Trying to prepare himself, Ty felt an avalanche of old pain surge violently through him. The hurt from the past was alive in Catt’s eyes. And he’d been the bastard to hurt her but good. Helplessly, he stood there. This was the kind of emotional assault he had absolutely no defense against—nor did he try to shield himself from what was justly his to take. The ugly past, the sordid details, all started to rise with vivid clarity into his conscious mind. Lord knew, he’d buried them deeply, but with the beautiful, furious Catt standing before him, they were all coming back with the speed of a laser-fired rocket.

“I used to be Cathy Simpson,” Catt snarled in a low, throttled tone. She found herself trying to hate Ty, but how could she when she saw the absolute surprise and unsettled pain in his expression, the agony in his cinnamon-colored eyes? She wanted so hard to hate him, but her heart was pounding and crying out for him! Choking, she rasped, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but whatever the reason, just do an about-face and march back from wherever you came. I don’t ever want to see you again, Hunter. I thought I made that clear a long time ago.”

The sudden prick of tears made Catt blink strongly. Tears! Not now. Not ever! Oh, Ty Hunter had such a vulnerable-looking face! Wasn’t that what had snagged her, entrapped her before—that helpless expression that he was now wearing for her benefit? Well, it was a damned game that he was very good at playing. She’d been a greenhorn of a sophomore in medical school when she’d fallen for him heart, body and soul. And Lord knew, he’d taken her soul, used her and then thrown her away when it came time to take responsibility for their choices. No, Hunter was a user, a manipulator of the worst kind. In her hour of greatest need, Ty Hunter had abandoned her. He’d left her. He’d said to hell with her and had walked away, pleading more important duties to take care of than the predicament she’d suddenly and inexplicably found herself in.

Ty opened his hand in a gesture of conciliation. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. He could almost feel Catt’s fury pummeling him as she stood tensely, as if prepared for combat. So much of the past, the bittersweetness of their torrid love affair, came smashing back to him. How much he’d tried to forget! And now he realized he’d forgotten nothing about her. Not the thick, silky quality of one strand of her auburn hair. Not the way her soft, firm skin smelled and tasted as he grazed it with his fingertips or tongue. Worse, he remembered her hungry lovemaking and how they’d met, matched and soared to the heights together like two eagles in mating season, high in the sky, hooking claws and tumbling thousands of exhilarating feet in the lovemaking process.

A serrating pain gutted him. What kind of awful trick was being played out here? “Look,” he managed to say in a low, soothing tone. “I don’t know anything about this, Catt—”

“It’s Dr. Alborak to you.”

He winced at the coldness of her words. She meant business—he could tell by the iciness in her eyes.

“Yes…Dr. Alborak.” Ty dragged in a ragged breath. He was reeling so badly from this terrible surprise that, for once in his life, he didn’t have the glib words, the quick comebacks he normally employed to defuse such situations. Lifting his hand in a pleading gesture, he rasped, “I’ve been sent here by OID. I’m your assistant.”

“That’s impossible! What the hell do you know about epidemic lab facilities? Last I heard, you were still in love with your precious Marine Corps. There’s no way you’re part of OID, so don’t try and get me to swallow that lie.” Catt tried to steady her shattered emotions, but it was impossible. Her heart was pounding wildly in her breast. Her breathing was shallow. Her employees were glancing back and forth between her and Ty Hunter with more than mild curiosity. Steve and Andy, who had been with her on just about every mission she’d been assigned to handle in the last five years, really looked baffled. Fortunately, they were smart enough to let her handle the situation. Catt was sure they would have questions later—questions she wouldn’t want to answer. Ty Hunter showing up was the worst possible thing that could have happened in her life—other than the painful tragedy she’d suffered through alone, so long ago.

Now all Catt could feel was bitterness, and she wanted to hate Ty for leaving her when she’d needed him most. “There’s no way you’re going anywhere with me and my team,” she sputtered. “These people I trust. I don’t trust you. I need staff I can rely on, not someone who’ll run out on me when the situation gets tough or dangerous.” She shook her head. “No, you get out of here, Hunter. I don’t care what you say. You are not a part of my team.”

Grimly, Ty pulled a paper from his shirt pocket, opened it and stepped forward, bringing himself almost eye-to-eye with Catt, who was tall at five foot nine or ten inches. As he held her edgy look, the fury of her gaze burning him, a picture from the past flashed before his mind. He vividly remembered the first time he’d seen her. He’d gone into Mountain View, a small town outside the gates of Moffett Field, the naval air station where he’d just been assigned after graduation from Annapolis, for a breather from his duties. The immense responsibilities on his young shoulders had driven him off to find a place to relax. Colorado had always afforded him unlimited open spaces to walk when he was upset as a child. Nature was healing to Ty and helped him when he felt lost or needed to release stress. By chance he’d wandered into a park, and relieved to find a piece of land that didn’t have steel, glass and concrete buildings on it, he began walking aimlessly through, until he spied a group of women playing soccer.

What had drawn him so dramatically to them was one woman—Catt. She was the tallest player on the team, and as she ran down the length of the field after the soccer ball, she’d reminded him of a fine-limbed Thoroughbred in top form. She’d been much thinner, but then she was still growing up, a twenty-year-old full of life, her red hair a banner streaming across her proud shoulders….

Ty remembered sitting on the sidelines, in uniform, not caring if they knew he was watching them. Just seeing Catt play, her intensity, her focus, her drive and competitive spirit, completely captured him. He’d never met a woman like her in his life. She’d overwhelmed him with her athletic ability, her beauty and her incredible presence, which shone like a million sparkling suns that day. He remembered how his heart had pounded, underscoring how drawn he was to her vitality, her raw, unbridled beauty. She reminded him of the wild mustangs that lived in the deserts of Colorado. It was her untamed spirit, her challenging, deep blue eyes, her determined smile, that had entrapped him. That still made him stare at her in wonder, even now.

“What’s this?” Catt demanded as she glared up at Hunter, who held some sort of document in his hands.

“The paper…the orders.”

She held his vulnerable brown gaze. Oh, she remembered those eyes, all right. Grabbing the paper, Catt tried to focus her attention on the words that blurred before her. It was impossible. Ty Hunter was too close, too virile, too damned powerful for her. Her wildly beating heart cried out that she could not bear to be embraced by him again. The thought made Catt turn on her heel and walk about ten feet away, just to escape the overwhelming sense of protection she felt radiating from him. Oh, Hunter was good, all right. He always had made her feel cared for, protected and supported. But she knew now it was all a sham. When things got dicey, he jumped ship. He’d abandoned her once, and she would never forget that day, that single defining moment of her life. Nothing had ever been so traumatic since then. Nothing.

Steadying her breathing, she held the paper with both hands. At first glance, she saw that it was on OID stationery and it was signed by her boss, Casey. As she read the terse paragraph, Catt scowled. She read and reread the document, which apparently was her newest set of orders.

Ty Hunter is to act as your immediate subordinate in all activities. He will be your assistant during this epidemic outbreak. I’ve sent him because he can potentially help you in difficult situations you may encounter. Use his talents. He will be your second-in-command.

Slowly turning around, Catt raked Ty with a glare, from his booted feet to his close-cropped hair. Damn him for being so handsome in his own rough kind of way. If anything, in the intervening decade, Hunter had grown far more handsome than when she’d known him. Back then he’d been a naive twenty-one-year-old. Although the clothes he wore hid his athletic prowess, Catt knew he was hard and well muscled. There was nothing soft about Hunter. There never had been. But that baby face of his was gone. In its place was the face of a man who’d seen and done a lot. Now his features had character and plenty of it, judging from the crow’s-feet at the corner of each of his intelligent eyes, the lines across his forehead and the indentations bracketing his mouth. His mouth…Whether Catt wanted them to or not, memories of him kissing her slammed through her.

Stop it! I can’t do this to myself! I just can’t! Nostrils flaring, Catt walked over and thrust the paper back at him. “Since when did you get epidemic and lab training, Hunter? Last I heard, you were up to your ass in alligators, with the president of the United States flying into your little naval air station.” Her voice was taut and choked with feeling, but Catt didn’t care what she sounded like. She wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt her. She couldn’t stop herself from lashing out at him, even though she knew it was wrong. This was one of the few times in her life that she felt helpless. It was an emotion Catt hated and tried to avoid. Being around Hunter was like being out of control, and she was panicking because of it. She never wanted anyone to make her feel that way again. Yet, as Ty stood motionless, the paper in his hand, his eyes containing that curiously gentle and understanding look, that’s exactly how she felt.

Angrily, Catt fought the emotions roiling inside her. After ten years she didn’t want to think anything except anger, bitterness, hurt and hate were left between them. “You hear me?” she demanded finally, her voice dropping an octave.

“I hear you,” Hunter rasped, purposely keeping his voice low and unruffled. He folded up the paper. “A lot has happened since we last…saw one another.”

“Obviously.” She sized him up with a withering look. “I don’t care who signed that paper. I don’t need you. You got that? You can crawl back under whatever rock you came out from.” She took a ragged breath and gestured toward her stunned teammates, who stood off to one side watching them. Catt felt embarrassed. They’d never seen her fly off the handle at anyone like this. “I’ve got people I can trust to do the job. I know they won’t run out on me when things get a little hot in the kitchen.”

Her words were like fiery barbs. Each one hurt like hell. Ty compressed his lips. In Catt’s eyes, he’d abandoned her. Well, that wasn’t exactly what had happened, but he’d be damned if he was going to air their personal laundry with strangers standing by, hanging on every word fired between them. No, right now he had to be the one to tame her, calm her down and get her focus back on what was important.

Pressing the orders back into the pocket of his shirt, he said, “You look stranded here. I thought a tug was supposed to take you down to the Juma village?”

Rubbing her brow, Catt took a step back. Obviously he wasn’t going to leave anytime soon. And she couldn’t make him leave. Her heart sagged in her breast and she felt panic mingle simultaneously with rage. This mission was dangerous enough to them physically. Now Catt was feeling like it was her emotions that were going to take the brunt of the beating, with Hunter showing up so unexpectedly. What twisted karma was at work here? She almost mouthed the words, but didn’t.

Hunter was right to bring the focus back to the matter at hand. What was important right now was the fact that people were dying. She clung, almost panicked, to the thought of the mission. If she got busy, she could block his presence from her mind—from her crying heart, which longed for him still. Angry with herself for feeling anything for him, Catt whispered, “The tug captain bailed out at the last minute—just like you did, Hunter. He was worried he’d get whatever that bug is out there, die and leave his family without a provider. I guess on that last point, that’s where he isn’t like you.”

The words were a slap in the face. Ty knew better than to try and defend himself. Especially in front of this group of people who didn’t know him. Wrestling with the hurt of her unfair accusations, he said, “Okay, let me see what I can do.”

She placed her hands on her hips and arrogantly lifted her chin. “Oh, yes, go handle this situation like you handled ours. If that’s the case, I don’t have to worry about you being around, do I? Out of sight, out of mind. You won’t come back now, just like you never came back then.”

Ty gave her a grim look. He didn’t like her flaunting their private past in front of her team. Maybe they already knew about him—and them. Maybe not. Smarting at her bitter words, he thinned his mouth and turned away. “I’ll be back,” he growled over his shoulder as he headed up the slight incline toward the awaiting cab.

Catt tried to gather herself together. She suddenly felt embarrassed by her wild reaction to seeing Hunter again. As the cab drove off toward Manaus, she took a shaky breath and tried to calm her shattered nerves.

It was Andy who was the first to approach her. “You okay, Catt?” He laid a hand on her shoulder.

Closing her eyes, Catt nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay, Andy.”

“Ghost from the past?” he guessed gently.

She opened her eyes and stared sightlessly toward the muddy Amazon. “You could say that.”

Allowing his hand to slip off her shoulder, Andy looked around, running his fingers through his blond hair. “Well, if he can find us a tug and a captain, then we can get back on track.” He rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

She heard the hope in his voice. “If I know anything about the bastard, it’ll be the last we see of him,” Catt breathed savagely. In her heart, she would be relieved if Ty never showed up again. “He’s got a past history of only being around when things are hunky-dory. But when things get into a choke hold, he abandons everyone and everything. He’s not to be trusted. No—” Catt shook her head adamantly “—if he doesn’t return, I’m not going to be sorry about it. We’re better off without him than with him, Andy.”

“Did OID send him?” Steve asked as he joined them.

Catt looked over at the thin, tall, balding man. Though Steve was in his fifties, he lived to globe trot from one epidemic to the next. Through the silver wire-rim spectacles that sat on his narrow, hawklike nose, his gray eyes were thoughtful as he met and held her gaze.

“Yes,” she muttered bitterly. “Casey sent him. I have no idea why. We have our team. We’re good at what we do. We always get the damned job done!”

“I wonder, could he be a virology specialist on the new South American bugs?” Maria Sanchez asked as she came over.

Snorting, Catt looked down at her. “Somehow, I doubt it. That bastard was in the Marine Corps, an Annapolis graduate, the last time I saw him. Just because he’s not wearing the uniform of the day doesn’t mean he isn’t in the military now. No, something fishy’s going on here. I don’t know what it is, but Maria, will you call OID and track Casey down? I want to talk to her.”

Maria nodded. “You bet,” she replied, digging the cell phone out of the leather knapsack that hung from her shoulder.

“What are we going to do about a tug?” Andy asked her.

“I want Maria and you two to walk down to those other docks and see if you can’t bribe one of the captains into taking us to that Juma village. As I understand it, the rate of exchange is about six hundred to one. Flash a twenty in front of them…or whatever it takes. A small amount of U.S. money will make them rich enough that they won’t have to work for a year if they’ll just get us downstream to Señor Antonio’s houseboat, near the Juma village. Get going. And good luck.”

The two men nodded and turned as Maria approached Catt and held out the cell phone to her. “Dr. Casey’s on the line.”

“Thanks,” Catt said, and took the phone. Maria, Andy and Steve walked down to the riverboats to find a willing tug captain.

“Casey?”

“Yes. Catt?”

“You got me. You’re breaking up a little.” Catt turned a bit. “Is this a better connection?”

“Much better. What’s going on? Are you in the Juma village?”

Catt grimaced. “Hell, no.” She went on to explain what had happened. “Listen, you just sent a guy down here by the name of Ty Hunter. Is that right?” Her hand became sweaty and she held the cell phone a little tighter.

“Yes, I did.”

“What for? Don’t you have confidence in me and my team to handle this situation?”

Casey laughed. “Confidence? Of course I do, Catt. That has nothing to do with this. Hunter is your assistant. I feel this situation is potentially so big that you need someone who can act like a gopher for you. Go for this, go for that. You know?”

Unhappily, Catt realized Casey did not know of their past with one another. Catt wasn’t about to mix personal business with her professional life, either. “I really don’t need him, Casey. That was decent of you to send him, but really, you can have him back. My team is all I need. There’s no way we can assess the Juma outbreak until we get in there. We’ve been delayed by an unexpected problem with the tug we originally hired. We’re in the process of rectifying it.”

“If I know Hunter, he’s probably looking for a tugboat for you this very moment. He’s a very handy person to have around, Catt. Believe me. He’s got a lot of time in grade over in Africa and South America. He’s handled a lot of dicey, dangerous outbreak situations. Hell, he almost died of Congo fever a couple of years ago during one of them. No, this guy is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of all of them. He’s the one person you want at your back if things break the wrong way.”

Catt nearly choked. Her lips parted and she almost told Casey she was dead wrong. Hunter was the last person to rely on in a tense situation. “So where did he pick up his knowledge of epidemics?”

“He’s got a minor in biology. I’ve used him from time to time on other outbreaks with other teams when the situation was dangerous and the factors were unknown. He’s an excellent go-between in many ways, Catt. He speaks Portuguese and no one on your team does. If nothing else, he can serve as your interpreter. Let him work for you. If you need something done, ask him. He’ll fill in and get it happening. He’s a can-do kind of guy, and my gut intuition on this particular mission is that you need a person with his varied experience to assist you in ways your other team members can’t.”

“I really don’t need him.”

“Sorry, Catt, but you’ll come to be glad he’s with you. Just trust me on this call, okay?”

“But you’ve never done this to me before, Casey. You’ve always trusted me to run my team in the past and get the job done.” Desperate, Catt closed her eyes. She had to get rid of Hunter. She just had to!

“Look, Dr. Alborak! Look!”

Half turning at the sound of Maria’s high-pitched, excited voice, Catt saw her lab assistant two hundred yards down the bank, pointing out toward the slow-moving, muddy river. Scowling, she muttered to Casey, “Hold on a sec….” Raising her head, she focused her gaze. Her heart dropped. And then it thudded violently. There, less than a quarter mile away, was a tugboat coming directly toward their dock. On the prow was Ty Hunter. Damn! He’d found a tug owner willing to take them downriver before her team could.

Her breath ragged, she turned her back on Maria.

“I can hear shouting in the background,” Casey said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Hunter,” Catt said unhappily. “He’s found us a tug.”

“See?” Casey said primly. “He’s already broken the logjam on your situation down there at the dock. I tell you, Catt, he’s a very handy person to have around.”

Catt realized that no matter what she said, what fight she put up, her boss was not going to let her get rid of Hunter. Disheartened, all the fire draining out of her voice, she said, “Okay, Casey, he’s a part of my team.”

“Don’t sound so glum. You’re the boss, Catt. What you send him to do, he’ll do, no questions asked. Okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Look, I’ll call in once we get to the Juma village and make an initial assessment, all right?”

“Sure. Just be careful, Catt. You and your team are too important in all of this.”

Catt pressed the off button and glumly walked to where Maria was standing. She felt as if her life was draining out of her with each hard beat of her heart. Ty Hunter stood like a proud warrior, his arms crossed against his chest, as the tug slowly paralleled the dock. She saw the triumph in his expression. The bastard was gloating. And then Catt chided herself. What the hell was really important here? People’s lives, not her private, sordid affair with Hunter. Somehow she was going to have to put it all behind her and focus on her mission.

She watched as Hunter jumped lithely, like the fabled and rare jaguar that ruled the Amazon jungle, onto the rickety wooden dock. He took the bowline and tied it to the post. Looking up, Catt saw Andy and Steve jogging back toward them, relief written on their sweaty features.

Ty decided that staying busy was the better part of valor with Catt, who stood tensely to one side. At that moment, she looked like a lost waif. He wanted to go to her, to try and smooth things out, but he knew it was impossible. Now was not the time to try and talk about the past, either. He saw the darkness in her glorious, cobalt-blue eyes. He felt her pain. Pain he’d caused her. Guilt ate at him, mixed with his own pain. He had a lot of questions for her, too. But they would have to wait. Walking off the dock, he went over to Maria.

“You need this equipment on board in any particular order?” he asked her.

Maria brightened. “Not really. It just all has to get on the tug.” She pointed to three dark green metal chests. “These contain our drugs and antibiotics in dry ice. Let Andy or Steve help you with them.”

Ty nodded and picked up a number of smaller boxes. He’d try and make himself useful—and stay out from under Catt’s feet, if possible. However, that tug was only sixty feet long and was going to be crowded at best. There’d be very little room to give Catt relief from his unexpected presence.

His chest ached. Hell, his heart was hurting, too. Every time he walked back for another load of equipment, he saw Catt standing there so alone, so apart from everything going on around them. Her shoulders were slumped. The look on her face was one of utter devastation. It agonized him to know that he was the cause of her turmoil. And more than anything, Ty realized, as he took another box to the awaiting tug, all the old feelings he had for Catt ten years ago were not only alive, but clamoring inside him. He needed to talk to her, to understand all that had happened on that day so many years ago.

Sighing raggedly, Ty handed the tug captain, who’d introduced himself as Hernandez, the box to be placed in the center region of the boat. He knew nothing of Catt’s life since their breakup so long ago. And there was so much he needed to know. She’d wanted to be a medical doctor and go on to become a pediatrician. She had always loved children…. Wincing internally, Hunter felt pain shoot through him. He turned on his booted heel and walked back for another box.

To his surprise, Catt was standing near the last box. She was waiting for him. He could see it in the challenging blue fire of her gaze, the hard set of her jaw and the way her body tensed as he approached.

Her voice was low and snarling.

“I don’t know what strings you pulled or why, Hunter. I don’t like it. I don’t like the fact that you’re here. And there’s nothing I can do about it. This smacks too much of our past together.” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “I don’t trust you at all. From here on out, I’m the boss. You carry out my orders or else. The first time you don’t, or you give me lip, I’m making a call on my cell phone to my boss and your butt is out of here. You got that?”

He felt her fear. He saw it in her eyes, even though he knew Catt was very good at making an opponent think she was fearless. Ty couldn’t be angry with her. He understood exactly where she was coming from—her last experience with him had hurt her badly. There was no way to explain. Not now…maybe never. That hurt. He didn’t like being seen as the villain in another person’s eyes. Especially Catt’s.

“We need to talk—”

“Like hell we do!” Her nostrils quivered, and her voice shook. “Hunter, you screw up just once and you’re out of here. Got it?”

He held her gaze, which was riddled with anguish and fear. “Yeah,” he growled under his breath, “I got it.”

Chapter Three

Ty wanted to scream like a wounded jaguar. Struggling against this unexpected surge of emotion, he stuffed his feelings deep down inside, as usual. From his position at the rear of the tug as it left the dock, he could see Catt standing at the bow as the engine chut-chutted along. Her profile was silhouetted against the magnificent expanse of the headwaters of the Amazon, and the suffering evident in her face was tremendous. Not only did she have the responsibility of the epidemic and people’s lives in her hands, but she had him. Maybe that’s all he was feeling—remorse for Catt’s suffering. Lord knew, he’d made her suffer terribly. His unresolved feelings were like a knife twisting savagely in his gut. But tears and emotions had no playing ground within a mercenary or military person—none at all.

The tug bobbed gently as it putt-putted across the slightly choppy expanse as the waters of two different rivers met to form the Amazon. Ty tried to focus instead on the beauty of the mighty waterway, where the dark tea-colored water of the Rio Negro, so clear he could see fish swimming in the depths of it, met with the Rio Suhimoes, a milky, muddy river. It looked like someone had poured chocolate milk and iced tea together. The branching of the two rivers was known as encongtro das aguas, the “wedding of the waters.” And from this marriage, the muddy Amazon was born. There would be a patch of transparent water here, a spot of milky water there as the two currents met and mixed.

It was almost 3:00 p.m. The afternoon haze that always hung over the equatorial country made the sun look like it was shining through opaque white gauze, rather than clouds. The temperature was in the nineties and so was the humidity. Ty was sweating profusely. But then, so was everyone else. So far the rest of Catt’s team treated him with respect, not with the withering glares Catt sent him, as if he were some kind of pariah. He sure felt like one. Obliquely, Ty wondered if Morgan or Casey knew of his tragic history with Catt. Probably not. He figured since her name was no longer Simpson, Catt had gotten married, and put their affair solidly behind her. And she could easily have shortened her name from Catherine to Catt. That was a simple enough explanation. But the thought of her with another man made him ache inside. As he sat on the edge of the thick rubber coating that covered the first foot of the tug, Ty had to work to contain all his emotions.

It was absolutely impossible. Morbidly, he swung his gaze back to Catt. She stood on the bow with the cell phone in hand, talking to someone. Probably arranging to get him off the tug and out of her life. Grimly, he realized that wouldn’t happen. Casey knew the score. She knew why he was on this mission, though Catt, hopefully, would never find out. She and her team had enough to handle without thinking about the threat of terrorists lurking in the area. That was his job—to be the eyes and ears for the group and protect them, as well as alert the U.S. government of Black Dawn’s whereabouts.

Just looking at the way the soft, humid breeze lifted strands of Catt’s burnished hair made him ache again. He recalled that fiery red hair streaming freely, like a wild river, across her shoulders as she’d played that soccer game where he’d met her so long ago. Even then she had stood out like the champion she was. Catt was good at whatever she tried. Though she often won, she was a good sport about losing, too, satisfied to simply give her all to the game.

Other feelings, other memories, gently wafted to the surface of his roiling emotions as he sat there on the tugboat, charging down the wide, wide expanse of the Amazon. Closing his eyes, his clasped hands resting between his opened thighs, Ty remembered their wildly torrid lovemaking. Catt had been as hot, assertive, wild and free with him as she was in real life. She was truly an unfettered spirit inside a delicious woman’s body. Ty remembered how he’d teased her once after loving her to exhaustion in a motel not far from the gates of the naval air station.

“You know what you are?” he had whispered, placing one small kiss after another on her damp brow as she lay beside him, absolutely spent, a wonderful smile of fulfillment on her soft, glistening lips.

Languidly, Catt moved her fingers across his well-shaped arm and up across his broad shoulder as she gazed into his eyes. “No, what am I?”

“An Amazon warrior.” He picked up a strand of her long, damp red hair and held it up, critically examining it in the late afternoon light that peeked around the shade at the front window. “Part child, part woman, part Amazon warrior, part goddess, part sunlight, part warm, rich earth…”

“Mmm, I like that,” she sighed, nuzzling his jaw as he cupped her shoulder and pressed her more surely against him. “No one has ever said things like that to me before….”

“Because?” Ty looked down at her with a grin.

Barely opening her eyes, she smiled up at him. “Because I’ve never fallen in love before, I guess.”

“Hard to imagine. You’re so beautiful. A free spirit. You’re like the wind in the thunderstorms I used to see every summer over the Rockies, where I grew up,” he murmured against her hair. “When I saw you on that soccer field, I thought you must have a hundred men waiting in line for you.”

Giggling, she said, “Not many men will take on a female Texas rancher, believe me. Most men feel as if they’ve met their match. More than met it! And that scares them.”

“Texas women are special, not to be feared or run from.” Ty smiled a little and pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. He ran his fingers through her hair, then trailed them across her cheek, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. More than anything, he liked the dusting of freckles across her straight, thin nose and cheeks. Her lashes were thick and long, like dainty fans against her flushed cheeks. Ty savored every moment spent with Catt. They didn’t get to meet often because of their demanding schedules. He could never get enough of her, of her husky voice, her touch, her loving, fiery body and that wild, free spirit of hers.

As he lay there and felt her snuggle deeply into his arms Ty had sighed with contentment. He’d never known love was like this. Oh, he’d had girlfriends off and on, but never had he been smitten like this, his emotions bright, his joy higher than the tallest mountain in the world, his senses more alive than he could ever recall. All because of this beautiful redheaded woman in his arms who had crashed into his life two months earlier. He could feel his heart opening powerfully to her as he held her. He’d felt such a sense of fierce protectiveness toward her and he knew he wanted her as his mate for the rest of his life. He was helpless against his longing for her; all he could do was hold her. Simply hold her.

As he sat on the tug now, a ragged sigh of frustration issued from between Ty’s lips. He scowled heavily and worked to erase that scene from his memory. Glancing toward the bow again, he saw that Catt was off the phone and talking to Steve, her chief lab man, who would be setting up the work station once they reached the village. Ty knew the responsibilities on Catt’s shoulders. He’d worked with outbreak teams before. They had to move fast to chase down the bacteria or virus that was mercilessly killing people.

As he studied the group out of the corner of his eye, Ty considered them modern-day knights, heroes and heroines riding into battle against an unknown opponent—one that could easily kill them, sometimes in as short a time as forty-eight hours after contracting the infection. Most of the world didn’t know much about these outbreak teams, the chances they took with the unknown, even when the unknown was a killer of powerful proportions. It took real guts to walk into an area where people were dropping like flies, and hunt down the invisible killer with thorough, detailed, step-by-step analysis and plain hard work. To flush out the culprit meant constantly exposing themselves to it. One wrong move—a prick with an infected needle, or the entrance of the infection into the body through an open cut—would allow the disease to gain a foothold. Just the cough of a sick person could be dangerous if the germ was an aerosol-borne substance and could be breathed in.

There were so many ways to die if one was an outbreak chaser like Catt and the members of her team. Men and women composing such teams were truly courageous in the face of danger, and Ty’s respect for them was as high as it was for a military person going into war. The risks an outbreak team took were as lethal as any he’d ever encountered during warfare. Instead of a bullet potentially killing one of them, it would be an invisible bacteria or germ. And the death could be gruesome and painful.

Worried, Ty wondered if Black Dawn had spread a nervine-type gas, such as VX, that would affect the central nervous system and stop a person from breathing, over the village. If they had, the team would see a lot of central-nervous-system symptoms such as paralysis, shaking or trembling limbs or altered states of consciousness in the victims. And a bug like that could easily be inhaled by Catt and her team.

Running his fingers through his short hair, Ty waited until Catt was standing alone at the bow once more. Then he made his move.

Catt’s heart thundered as she saw Ty slowly ease to a standing position and head in her direction. She sat down on one of the trunks at the bow. Busying herself with a clipboard, she pretended not to notice his approach. Maybe he’d get the message and leave her alone.

“You got a minute?” he asked, coming to a halt in front of her. Ty saw the rest of her team at the other end of the tug, watching warily. Looking back at Catt, who had her head bowed over the clipboard on her lap in an obvious attempt to ignore him, he waited her out.

“I’m busy,” she snapped.

“This will be the most unbusy time you’ll have,” he began. “When we land at that village, you and your team will work yourselves into exhaustion the first forty-eight hours. You won’t even have time to sleep, while you try to find the culprit that’s killing off those people. And you won’t want to talk to me then, either, so now is as good a time as any.”

Putting down the pen, Catt glared up at him. “What do you want?” She tried to hate him again, but it didn’t work. He stood there, open and accessible, every emotion he felt revealed in his eyes. Catt knew he wasn’t trying to hide anything from her—and she knew how good he was at hiding the truth when he chose to do so. For whatever reason, he was allowing her to see all of him without any walls.

“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, pointing to a green metal trunk behind him. He knew that would put only about three feet between them, and he saw the wariness in Catt’s expressive features. It hurt to see how much she distrusted him. Well? Hadn’t he earned it? Yes. So now that he’d made his bed, he had to lie in it.

“You’ll sit whether I want you to or not.”

Grinning mirthlessly, Ty eased back onto the trunk. Opening his thighs, he clasped his hands between them and studied her in the late afternoon light. He could see the stress around her mouth and eyes. Her brow was no longer smooth, but looked permanently wrinkled with the intensity of her concentration on the mission ahead of them.

“Spit out whatever you were going to say and then leave. I’ve got work to do,” Catt warned him. She didn’t want to look at Ty. Every time she even glanced into his warm, inviting brown eyes, she felt her heart crying out with need for him. It was a ridiculous reaction on her part. Completely ridiculous!

“I just want to go over some logistics with you,” he began in a deep, soothing tone. “Casey wanted me to be a gopher and a guard dog at the same time, for you and your team.”

Head snapping up, Catt looked at him. “What do you mean, guard dog? Are the Juma in a territorial dispute with another tribe?”

“No…not that I know of. We’ll be meeting Rafe Antonio, a backwoodsman in this area. He works for the state and is the Brazilian equivalent of what we Americans would call a forest ranger.”

“He’s the one who contacted OID in the first place,” Catt agreed, though she felt like fleeing. Just being this close to Ty Hunter was like hell itself. Only it was a hell filled with sweet longing—the kind of longing Catt never would have thought she’d feel if they’d ever met again. Ten years had hardened her heart against him. Or so she’d thought.

“Yes,” Ty said tentatively. “He’s got a houseboat, which is how he gets around to the various tribes that live in the backwater channels off the Amazon. Casey wanted me to fill you in on the Juma and get you up to speed on the politics of what’s going down presently in Brazil regarding them.”

“Since when did you become a South American Indian expert?”

Her sarcasm assaulted him. Frowning, Ty refused to let her anger toward him distract him from what he needed to share with her. “I’ve batted around the world a lot since you knew me,” he said slowly and carefully. Noting her surprise, he added, “I left the Marine Corps five years ago. Now I work for the federal government as an expert on outbreak epidemics, with a specialty in South America and Africa.” He didn’t mention that his real knowledge was in bioterrorism. That would tip Catt off, and he didn’t need her knowing the truth—at least, not yet, and maybe never. If Morgan was wrong about this being a Black Dawn experiment, and this was an outbreak situation only, there was no reason to needlessly put more stress on Catt and her team. They’d have enough danger to handle with the epidemic alone, without the possible threat of bioterrorists in the vicinity.

Catt frowned. “I see.”

“I was also chosen for this team because I speak Portuguese. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Brazilian jungle the last three years.” He looked around, his voice softening. “It’s a beautiful place. Like a Garden of Eden. There’re so many plants and animals within the jungle itself. It’s like a living, evolving laboratory right before your eyes….”

She tried to remain immune to Ty’s unexpected vulnerability, to his obvious love of this humid jungle environment—an environment that only made her feel miserable and hot. “Pretty to you. Dangerous to us,” she accused sharply.

Shrugging, Ty studied her. Despite her personal dislike of him, Catt was gradually being less defensive and prickly as they spoke to one another. For that he was grateful. Opening his hands, he said, “No disagreement from me. Rafe will meet us at the head of the channel. He’s got a green houseboat with white trim.” Looking at his watch, Ty said, “We’ll be about an hour late, but that’s no big deal. He’ll be waiting, and he’ll guide us back to the village.”

“I just tried to raise him on the cell phone,” Catt said. “No answer.”

“I’m not surprised,” he told her in a low voice. “Cell phones don’t work real well out in the jungle. Around Manaus,” he continued, looking back upriver, where the skyline of the modern city had disappeared from view, “they work fine. Out here, I’m afraid you’re going to find that old-fashioned pony express will be the communication of the day.”

Nodding, Catt said, “No different from any other outbreak situation we’ve been in before—cut off from the outside world except by Jeep, Land Rover, horseback or a good pair of hiking boots.”

Ty nodded and grinned a little. Thrilled that Catt was settling down now and speaking to him without such rancor, he breathed an inner sigh of relief. How badly he wanted to reach out and touch her long, elegant fingers. How badly he wanted to tell Catt that the coals of his love for her were still there after all this time. It was a surprise to him, one that made him feel unstable and unsure of himself. He’d thought the love he’d had for Catt had died long ago.

“You should set your lab up near Rafe’s houseboat,” he suggested. “You don’t know what kind of epidemic we’re facing yet, and his boat is about as safe as it will get.”

“I’d already thought about that. Do you know how far back from the channel the Juma village sits?” Catt found herself falling into companionable conversation with him—once again. Oh, Ty Hunter had always been easy to talk with. How many times had she replayed those wonderful, stolen moments from the past? Far too many. Catt recalled the endless tears she’d cried when he’d abandoned her. In her greatest hour of need, when she’d craved Ty’s comfort, his arms, his support, he hadn’t been there for her. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes now, and she blinked several times to push them away. Looking at him, she dropped her gaze to his strong, capable mouth. Hotly, she recalled how wonderful his kisses had been. How his mouth had moved with such silken power across her lips, taming her, guiding her, cajoling her and meeting her hunger with his own.

Taking a shaky breath, Catt closed her eyes and rubbed her brow.

“Headache?” Ty asked gently, as she continued to gently massage her wrinkled brow. He ached to reach out and rub the tension out of her shoulders as he had in the past.

“Yes,” she muttered uneasily. “It’s a migraine coming on.”

“Some things don’t change, do they?” And he smiled a little as she opened her dark blue eyes and stared at him. The silence stretched between them. Ty recalled that headaches, the migraine variety, had always plagued Catt. In the past, when they had been going together, he would turn her around and gently knead and massage her tight neck and shoulders, and miraculously, the oncoming migraine would disappear. And when he looked in her eyes now, he saw that she remembered, too, how he had cared for her. And then he saw anger wash the warmth in her gaze away. Realizing he’d overstepped the bounds of their present, tenuous relationship, he said, “Sorry, I just don’t like to see you in pain.”

Her fingers slipped from her brow and she sat up, fury sizzling through her. “Really?” Sarcasm made her voice brittle, nearly acidic.

Heat raced up his cheeks. Ty realized he was blushing beneath her blistering stare. Well, didn’t he have it coming? “I have a friend, a homeopathic doctor,” he said, trying to steer their conversation back on track. “She saved my life with this alternative medicine when I contracted Congo fever in an outbreak over in Africa. They had flown me to London to die. The priest had already given me the last rites when Dr. Rachel Donovan-Cunningham came in, gave me one of her little white pills and told the priest to go away, that I wouldn’t be needing his services.” Ty’s mouth stretched a little as he held Catt’s furious gaze. Already, as he began his story, he could see her anger fleeing, replaced with curiosity. That was one of the many things he had loved about Catt: her emotions were so open, so easily read on her face. Yes, she had a temper, but it never lasted long. She was like a Texas thunderstorm, erupting suddenly, but quickly returning to calm. In some ways, she hadn’t changed at all, and he gloried in that small discovery.

“I’ve heard of homeopathy. So it saved your sorry neck?”

Hunter chuckled. “For better or worse, yes, it did.” He gestured toward her left shoulder. “I remember you got migraines from a tight neck and shoulders. Dr. Donovan-Cunningham taught me a lot about homeopathy as I recovered in that London hospital. As a parting gift, she gave me a repertory and materia medica on the medicine. Over the years, I’ve gotten more training when I could. I’m not at her level, but I can use it for acute situations like your migraine if you’re interested.”

Catt didn’t like the idea of Ty helping her. All too vividly, she recalled how he’d made her migraines go away before—with his marvelous, kneading fingers that worked a special magic on her tight flesh. Glaring at him, she said, “With you on board, my migraine is coming back. I’ll take anything to make it and you go away.”

Ty understood. “If I thought jumping overboard and swimming back to shore would cure it, I would.”

“Try it.”

Stung, but trying not to show his hurt, he took out a pad of paper and pen from his shirt pocket. “If you can answer a few questions about your symptoms, maybe I can find the right remedy to get rid of it. But unfortunately, I won’t be able to rid you of myself just yet.”

“Fire away,” she muttered, as she ruefully rubbed her neck to ease the tension.

He opened the pad and asked, “What does it feel like?”

Grimacing, Catt growled, “Like someone is pulling all the skin on the back of my head and neck so tight that it’s going to crack and break.”

He wrote some notes down. Pleased that she was going to cooperate despite the fact that she saw him as her archenemy, Ty asked, “The pain? Can you describe it?”

“Dull and aching. Why are you asking me so many questions? Why can’t you just give me the pill for migraines?”

“Because in homeopathy, we take all the symptoms of your case first, look them up in the repertory as a unit and then find the one single remedy that fits most of your major symptoms.”

“Humph.”

“This isn’t like the pharmaceutical drugs you’re used to,” he warned.

“Obviously. What else? This thing is coming on slow but sure.”

“When did it start?”

“When I saw you.”

He nodded and looked at his watch. “So it’s a slow-moving migraine?”

“You know it is.”

Unruffled, he said, “What makes it feel worse?”

“Having you sit here. Having you on this tug with me.”

The corners of his mouth rose slightly. “I won’t find those symptoms in my repertory. Any others?”

She tried to remain immune to his charm, to that little-boy smile lurking around his mouth. Why did Ty have to be so damned ruggedly handsome? He could charm a snake if he wanted to. Nostrils flaring, she lifted her head and rubbed her neck. “I just had a cup of coffee, and that helped ease it a little.”

“So, it gets better with stimulants?”

She eyed him. “I guess you could say that. Coffee is a stimulant of sorts.”

“That’s right,” he agreed. “What else?”

It hurt to think at this point. Catt wished Ty would go away, and at the same time, her heart was absorbing his nearness like a desert that hadn’t seen rain in years—a decade to be exact—and that made her scared of her own emotions toward him. Fumbling for a response, she muttered, “Bad news.”

“Me,” he said, scribbling again. “Anything that makes your symptoms worse?”

“With this damned humidity cranking up, I always feel horrible. So I guess you could say heat and sunlight like we’re having right now, okay?”

Ty finished writing and got up. “I’ll be back in a bit with a remedy.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” She watched as he nodded and carefully picked his way past the boxes stacked on the deck of the tug. The humid air felt somewhat cooler, but not much. Catt had the desire to leap into the cool waters of the muddy Amazon. She squelched that idea because among the denizens that lived in these fabled waters were schools of flesh-eating piranhas. No, she had no desire to be stripped to her skeleton by those hungry little monsters.

Rubbing her neck once more, Catt sighed heavily. Being around Ty was like holding her hand over an open flame and letting herself be burned. What recourse did she have? None. Her migraine was intensifying. It was because of the shock of seeing him once again, she knew. If only her stupid heart would let him go! Why did she feel hope? Joy when he was nearby?

“I feel like a damned thunderstorm—up one second, down the next,” she muttered under her breath. She saw Ty sitting down on the deck, a book in hand and another at his side, deep in concentration. Turning, Catt looked out across the bow of the tug. The Amazon River was nearly half a mile wide at this point, a yellow-gray color against the jungle along the banks. Trees of varying types, including palms, were so thick that light rarely reached the jungle floor, and she could see the darkness within. A flight of red-and-yellow macaws flew overhead in a V pattern. Their color stood out against the clouds that seemed to perpetually hang overhead. Would she ever see direct sunlight again?

“I think I got your remedy.”

Catt jumped. She didn’t mean to, but Ty’s voice was so close, she couldn’t help it. Jerking to look upward, she saw he was standing in front of her, a couple of white pellets in the hand extended in her direction. Eyeing them and then him, she growled, “What is it?”

Ty saw that strain was deepening around Catt’s eyes—pain from the oncoming migraine encroaching. “It’s a remedy called Gelsemium. In layperson’s language, it’s yellow jasmine.” He crouched down in front of her and kept his hand extended. Catt was eyeing the pellets jadedly. “In its natural state, the herb is poisonous and could kill you. But—” he pointed to the pellets “—these are made so that there’s no longer any of the crude substance left in it to hurt you.”

“Then what’s left?” Catt demanded. “Air?”

He grinned. “Energy. I know we don’t have time to talk much about this kind of medicine, but trust me that the energy signature of Gelsemium is in these pellets.”

“And these things will stop my migraine?”

He heard the disbelief in her voice. He saw the distrust in her eyes. “Yes, it will.”

She stared at him. “Give me one reason to trust what you say, Hunter.”

His heart ached in that moment. He knew her question grew from the way he’d made her suffer in the past; he could hear her pain in her low, hoarse tone. As gently as possible, he rasped, “This isn’t about me. This is about you and trying to help you be pain free. You don’t need a migraine going into an outbreak situation. You don’t have to trust me in order to take this remedy. If it works, you’ll know it in twenty minutes. Your migraine symptoms will start to go away.” Holding her challenging blue gaze, he moved his hand a little closer to her.

Disgruntled, Catt held out her palm. “Give them to me.”

He tipped his hand. Their fingers met and touched briefly. Catt instantly jerked hers away. The white pellets fell to the deck of the tug. Ty heard her mutter a curse of desperation mixed with anger.

“Just stay put,” he told her, unwinding and straightening to his full height. “I’ve got more. I’ll bring you another dose.”

Feeling foolish, Catt refused to look at him. Ty was being incredibly tolerant and gentle with her despite the sarcasm, the anger she continually aimed at him. Her fingers tingled where they’d briefly touched his. A wild flurry of heat had jolted up through her body from that contact. It had shocked her. Scared her. Feeling very stupid at jerking her hand away as if it had been scalded, Catt watched him pick up a black plastic case that looked like a small fishing tackle box. He wound his way back to her and sat down on the trunk opposite her.

Opening the case, Ty showed her some two-dramsize amber bottles with black caps on them. “I carry fifty homeopathic remedies with me all the time.” Maybe if he showed her some of what he knew, she’d settle down and not be so jumpy. But Ty knew why she’d jerked her hand away. She hated him so much she didn’t want to be touched by him. The hurt moving through him was as wide as the Amazon they floated on. There was nothing he could do; he felt the wound in his heart expanding. He felt his need for Catt all over again, along with the pain of knowing they could never be together again.

Taking out one bottle, he handed it to Catt, making sure he didn’t touch her hand in the process. “Here’s the Gelsemium. Open it and put a few pellets on the palm of your hand. And then put them under your tongue. They’ll melt away real quick. They’re sweet-tasting, so you’ll like them.”

Doing as she was instructed, Catt hurriedly recapped the bottle and handed it back to Ty. Because she was distracted, her fingers brushed his again. This time she forced herself not to jerk away and drop the bottle.

“Look,” she rasped, “I’ve got more work to do….”

Ty understood. He put the bottle back in the case and closed it. “No problem. Let me know if your migraine goes away?”

“Yes, sure….” Catt didn’t believe for a moment it would go away because of this “energy” medicine of his. From her point of view as a medical doctor, it was snake oil or hocus-pocus at best. As he rose and left, she dragged in a sigh of relief.

Being around Ty was like being around a raging fire that was out of control. Catt was both attracted to and afraid of him. What was she going to do? How would she handle his nearness at the village? Someway, Catt realized, she had to get Ty away from her. A plan began to form in her aching head. Yes, if she could just keep him away from her and her silly, pining heart, maybe, just maybe, she could survive this time with him.

Chapter Four

“My headache’s gone,” Catt said grumpily. It had taken every bit of her courage to walk down the length of the tug as it chugged into the hazy sunset, and admit that to Ty. He was sitting on the rough wooden deck of the ill-kept tug, notebook in hand, writing. She stood over him, her hands on her hips, feeling tense and full of turmoil. Ty was here, with her. That fact still overwhelmed her. What sick twist of the cosmos had occurred? In all these years, Catt had never envisioned meeting with her first love again—nor had she wanted to.

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