El Halcón - Part One

Rey Skywalker thought taking a mission trip to South America with her church group would be an adventure. What she didn’t expect was becoming a captive of the notorious El Halcón.

This is my first Star Wars AU (Alternate Universe) story. This means the characters are Star Wars, but the story is not. Part One is Rated R.

El Halcón

When Rey Skywalker had agreed to come on this mission trip to Ajan Kloss with her friend Finn and his father, she had hoped the change in scenery would lead to a bit of an adventure. However, as she sat on the hard wooden floor of the schoolhouse, her back against the wall, two small children huddled up next to her on either side, watching seven heavily armed men pace around the room in front of her, she decided this was far too much adventure for her.

She glanced over at Finn and his dad, Lando Calrissian, one of the deacons in her church, and winced as she took note of Finn’s swollen eye. He had tried to be brave and had talked back to one of the men; Rey felt happy that a black eye was all he had gotten out of the confrontation. She looked at the man who had popped Finn in the eye with his rifle butt, but immediately looked away as the giant brute glanced her way. He was paying far too much attention to her, and though she wanted to be strong and brave like Finn, she knew making eye contact with the man would only make him more likely to attack her. She worked with wildlife; she knew how predators acted.

She looked over to the other side of the room where the two nuns that ran the school sat with more of the children. The older one, Sister Clara, was arguing in fluent Spanish with one of the younger men, who couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. Rey once more cursed the fact that she had quit Spanish in High School after only two years. Though she had picked up quite a few phrases in the three days she’d been here in Ajan Kloss, there was no way she could keep up with the conversation. She did catch Clara calling her Sister Realyn more than once; Rey was not a nun, but she wasn’t going to point that out. She knew Clara was trying to protect her. Though these outlaws were far from angels, many were still deeply religious, and letting them think Rey was a nun would hopefully help protect her from rape or murder.

She glanced once more at the big brute staring at her from near the doorway. Except him, she thought. She sensed that he would rape anyone he wanted, nun or not.

She looked over at the window next to the chalkboard and the man standing there. He was the only one of the seven that had yet to speak. Armed to the teeth just like the others, he seemed abnormally calm and watched the room cautiously with a scowl on his face, occasionally glancing out the window. Though shorter and slighter than the brute, his grey-flecked hair and beard indicated more maturity than the others, and it was easy to see how the others deferred to him. He was very obviously the leader, and she felt he was probably the most dangerous man in the room. As she watched him, his eyes suddenly met hers. For a moment, she was frozen, unable to look away as his intense gaze focused on her, assessing her. She tore her eyes away and looked down, her heart thudding hard in her chest. The fear she felt was real, but it was different than the fear she felt toward the brute and the others. She couldn’t explain it. Stockholm Syndrome, she wondered? After only three hours? She doubted it. She cautiously looked up again, and was dismayed to realize he was still staring at her, his expression unreadable.

The arguing between Clara and the boy was getting louder. Rey recognized the name Dominguez and she felt a sharp jab of panic. They had been told on their arrival that the Dominguez Cartel, the largest and most powerful in the country, would leave the missionary teams from the United States alone. But as she watched Clara talk, she realized that these men were not only from the Dominguez Cartel, but that the quiet man staring at her, the leader, was apparently José Dominguez himself, the son and heir apparent to the ‘throne.’ El Halcón, the locals called him. The Falcon.

Remembering the intensity of his gaze, she understood why they called him that.

She felt a poke on her arm and looked down at Paulo, the boy pressed up to her right side. “Puedo ir al baño?” he whispered. Rey had been working with these children long enough to understand that bit of Spanish. She looked over toward Sister Clara and Sister Edna, trying to catch their eye, but they were both focused on the men, still trying to argue their way out of being hostages.

Finally, with poor Paulo still poking her insistently, she spoke up. “Excuse me!” she called out, her voice barely loud enough to be heard over the heated discussion. She felt almost all the eyes in the room fall on her. “Excuse me, but it’s well past the children’s bathroom break,” she said, her eyes scanning the room. “The children need the restroom.” Her eyes clashed for a moment with Dominguez’, and she felt her face heat. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself, but she guessed it was too late for that anyway.

There was silence for a moment, and she wondered if any of the men spoke English. She looked at Sister Clara in exasperation. The nun seemed to pull herself out of her momentary shock and repeated what Rey had said in Spanish. Rey grimaced as she noticed all but Dominguez look toward the nun; he continued to stare at her.

Then he spoke for the first time. Gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the butt of his holstered Glock, he spoke to the men around him. Quickly, one of the men moved toward her and motioned for her to get up. “You’ll help us,” he told her in English. At least she knew one of them could understand her.

Soon, all the children were lined up and moving out the back door toward the restroom. It wasn’t an ‘outhouse,’ per say; they did have indoor plumbing, but the building itself was separate from the schoolhouse, and it was only one bathroom, so the children would have to go one by one. It took time as Rey stood outside the door, guiding the kids in at their turn. Two of the men stood guard over them, hands on their weapons, eyes dark as they watched over the line of children. Another stood at the door of the schoolhouse, making sure the children went back in after they were done using the facilities. They were almost through the line when Rey saw the brute coming out. He said something to the other men and they nodded and headed back inside. Only Pedro was left to use the restroom and once the little girl before him was done, the man at the back door also disappeared inside.

Rey watched the brute warily as she waited for Pedro. He was staring at her with a smirk on his face. Rey felt her heartrate increase significantly and worried it would thud right out of her chest. Finally, Pedro exited and Rey grabbed the child’s shoulders gently and guided him back toward the schoolhouse. As they passed the brute, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back violently. She jerked away from him as hard as she could but he was too strong. She looked at Pedro with panic. “Run, Pedro!” she screamed as the brute forcefully dragged her into the jungle behind the restroom. “Run!”

To her relief, not only did the boy run, but he ran past the schoolhouse and toward the main part of the village. He would get help for the others, she thought. They would be okay!

Now she had to worry about herself. She knew exactly what the brute intended, and she was going to do her damnedest to make sure he didn’t succeed. She scratched and kicked and tried every self-defense trick she had ever been taught, but she had no leverage and the brute was just too strong. She managed one good swipe at his cheek, clawing him viciously. He bellowed angrily and brought his right arm up, backhanding her across her face. The impact was so forceful, Rey literally saw stars and she would have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t had a hold of her arm. But then she did hit the ground as he threw her down.

With a horrifying expression on his face, he fell upon her, bringing her arms up above her head and pinning them to the ground with one meaty hand. With the other, he began to pull up her skirt. Rey shook her head, trying to focus again, and was soon kicking at him fiercely, trying her best to aim at his privates. If she could make him hurt enough for him to let go…

Suddenly, his weight was gone, and she realized he had been pulled off of her with great force. She sat up and scooted back on her butt, staring at the scene in front of her.

José Dominguez stood in front of her, facing the man he had just pulled off of her, speaking in a low but dangerous sounding voice. The brute shouted back, and though Rey didn’t understand the words, she knew they were meant to insult. Dominguez lifted his chin, and she could see the challenge on his face. Though shorter than the brute, he was heavily muscled and lean; it was like watching a cougar face off with a grizzly. She had no clue who would win.

The brute suddenly pulled a gigantic looking knife from a sheath at his hip. With a smirk, Dominguez did the same.

******

Rey scooted back even more, trying to untangle her legs from her long broomstick skirt. Her back hit the trunk of a tree, and though she thought briefly about getting up to run, she felt almost paralyzed by the sight of the two men in front of her. They were circling each other, knives at the ready, and Rey sensed almost immediately that this confrontation wasn’t a surprise to either man. She also sensed that it wouldn’t be a simple tussle; this would be a fight to the death.

Rey watched in horrid fascination as the two men lunged at each other, knives flashing in the weak sunlight coming through the canopy of the trees. She winced as they slashed and parried and dodged each other’s weapons. It seemed to her that the brute was doing more work, and her suspicions proved correct as she realized he was starting to breath hard, sweat dripping down his face. Dominguez, on the other hand, looked like he was out for a stroll. Though sweat dampened his face as well, it was a normal reaction to the heat and humidity of the surrounding jungle. He said something to the brute, but he spoke so softly that even if she had understood the language, she couldn’t hear the words clearly. But the brute obviously did. He roared in anger and charged the smaller man, but Dominguez was ready, not only ducking aside at the last second, but grabbing the brute’s arm, swinging the man off balance and bringing him back around to face him. With a suddenness that caused Rey to gasp, Dominguez’ knife slid silently up and into the brute’s body.

Eyes wide, the larger man became immobile, staring at Dominguez with shock. He groaned, and blood began dripping from his mouth. Dominguez, looking his advisory in the eye, shoved the knife in deeper and twisted it, then pushed the man backward, his face showing no emotion as the brute fell. Rey covered in mouth in horror as the man tried catching himself with one hand, the other coming up to cover the bloody wound just under his sternum. Blood continued to pour from his mouth, mixing with saliva, as he gasped for air. He turned his head to look at her, but his eyes were unseeing. It took only seconds for his ragged breathing to stop.

Rey took in a large gulp of air and she turned her focus on Dominguez. The man was breathing hard now, for the first time showing signs of exertion. He closed his eyes briefly and clenched his jaw, then he stepped forward, squatted down, and wiped his knife on the dead man’s pant leg before putting it back into its sheath. He stood and slowly turned his head to look at her.

She shuddered and started to push herself up onto her feet, bracing off the tree at her back. While she knew this man has saved her from rape, did she dare trust him any more than the brute? Dominguez turned toward her, his eyes flashing. Rey looked off to the side, wondering if she should make a run for it. Could she make it back to the village? She was no slouch in the running department, but she was at a major disadvantage in her long skirt and sandals. He stalked toward her, jaw set and brow furrowed. She stayed put, instinct telling her to wait for her moment. He stopped in front of her, and she realized with a start that he wasn’t much taller than her five-foot, seven-inch frame; he carried himself with such self-confidence he seemed bigger. They stood eye to eye for a while, staring at each other, and Rey realized she was holding her breath. She let it out in a rush and he raised his chin slightly, a small smile playing on his full lips.

Yelling from behind him, back toward the schoolhouse and the village, broke whatever spell he had placed on her. He turned his head, a frown taking over the smile, as he looked over his shoulder toward the shouting. He took a deep breath, then turned back to face her. She could swear his gaze looked apologetic. With a grimace, he grabbed her wrist and without any warning started dragging her toward the noise.

She was startled at first, but after a while her defenses kicked in again, and she began to resist. But he was just as strong as the brute, and he just kept tugging her along with him as he walked. Suddenly, she recognized one of the voices as Pedro’s, the boy she had sent off running when the brute had grabbed her. She stopped struggling and found herself running a bit to keep up with Dominguez. She soon realized they were not heading toward the schoolhouse, but toward the road that went past it into the jungle. A truck sat on the road, its engine idling, and she watched as one of Dominguez’ men pulled the driver from the cab while the other men starting piling into the back. The driver had his hands up, fear etched on his face. Dominguez yelled at his men demandingly. One responded quickly as Dominguez lead her around to the back of the truck. The young man that Sister Clara had been arguing with was in the bed of the truck holding on to the struggling Pedro.

From what Rey could gather, Pedro’s screaming had alerted others in the village, including the Federal Police Dominguez’ men had been hiding from, that there was trouble in the schoolhouse. The young man had managed to grab the child, and the rest of the men, not knowing where Dominguez and Teedo (the brute, Rey assumed) were, had run, bringing Pedro with them.

Without letting go of her wrist, Dominguez ran his other hand down over his face, bringing it up and around to rub the back of his neck. He sighed and looked at his men, then looked back toward the village, where more yelling could be heard. He muttered something Rey wished desperately she could understand, then focused on his men again. Using his hand to emphasize his orders, he began to direct them. Rey understood a bit, and knew he was demanding that Pedro be released, that she would be a better hostage as she was an American. For once, she agreed. Anything to get the boy away from these men. The man holding Pedro let him go. “Lárgate de aquí!” Dominguez told the boy.

Pedro looked at her, his eyes scared but questioning; the boy was worried about her. “Go!” she told him, nodding her approval and giving him a small smile. He shot off the back of the truck as if he had been fired from a gun, running like mad down the road to the village.

“Vámanos!” Dominguez shouted, and he shoved her toward the men standing in the bed of the truck. They grabbed her arms and hauled her into the vehicle with them, bringing her to the back by the cab. She watched as Dominguez ran toward the front passenger side of the truck and hopped in. Immediately, the truck roared and began accelerating down the road. Rey lost her balance but the two men holding her kept her upright, then they dragged her down with them as they sat in the bed of the truck.

She closed her eyes, praying Finn and Lando and the others were okay. And then she prayed that whatever these men had in store for her, she could endure it with as much grace and courage as possible.

She would need that grace and courage as she was now the captive of El Halcón himself.

******

Rey spent the first hour or so of the ride waiting for the Federales to show up; the truck the Dominguez men had stolen wasn’t exactly fast and the roads through the jungle were not made for speed anyway. But the Federal Police never came. She figured either there had been only a small contingent in the village to begin with and they were waiting on reinforcements before pursuing Dominguez and his men or, and Rey was leaning toward this choice, one or more of the police were in Dominguez’ pocket. Needless to say, after about an hour, she finally gave up on her hope of rescue.

The ride became monotonous. At first, the men around her chattered and laughed and joked around, none of them seeming concerned about one of their number missing, but even they seemed to fall into a certain stupor after more than an hour of bouncing around the back of the truck. Rey looked at the sun, trying to determine the time of day. The men had entered the schoolhouse shortly after nine in the morning and she guesstimated it had been just before noon when she had asked for the bathroom break for the children. She determined she had been in this truck now for about three hours and she now needed a bathroom break of her own. She was just on the verge of saying something, else embarrass herself completely, when the truck stopped.

“Baño!” one of the men shouted, and they rose, stretching and groaning and moving toward the back of the truck. The man closest to her, the one who had spoken English to her in the school, grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her onto her feet. Her whole body was stiff and her bladder was threatening to burst, but she followed him as best she could rather than be dragged along. He supported her as she sat on the tailgate of the truck and slid to the ground, then he led her into the jungle, the opposite direction from the rest of the men. She turned to find Dominguez watching them, his eyes hooded, his frown barely visible behind his beard.

The man, Miguel she had overheard him called, let go of her arm and nodded toward a large tree. “You can go there, Hermana,” he told her. “Please do not run. The jungle will kill you if you do.”

She just nodded at him and gratefully stepped behind the tree, extra glad she was wearing a long skirt to help make this chore easier. After she was through, she glanced around her. For a moment, she considered doing what she had been told not to; she had spent a great portion of her life in the outdoors, learning how to hunt and forage, able to make fire and shelter. Her father had trained her well. However, the mountains of Wyoming were a great deal different than the jungles of Ajan Kloss. She had no clue what kind of predators lived here or what was safe to eat. With a sigh, she left the shelter of the tree and walked back to Miguel.

He nodded to her and took her arm, leading her back to the truck. Once more, she was pulled into the bed and pushed to sit on the floor by the cab. She sat gratefully, closing her eyes and stretching her neck as she did so; she felt a subtle pain on one side of her neck, moving up the back of head, and it scared her. It was a warning, one she had long ago learned to dread. A migraine was emanant, and her prescription medication was back with her things in the village. She kept her eyes shut, focusing on her breathing and trying her best to relax her muscles. While doing meditation to try and prevent a migraine had never really helped in the past, she was forever hopeful. And she prayed. Oh, did she pray.

She wasn’t aware of how long they drove this time, and she may have dozed a bit, but when the truck stopped suddenly and she opened her eyes, she was startled to find that dusk had fallen. The men were laughing and chattering among themselves again, getting out of the truck and immediately working to set up camp. Miguel helped her out of the truck and once more led her into the trees. As she did her business, knowing it might be the last time they allowed her to do so until morning, she heard him shouting back toward the others. It was undeniably Dominguez who responded.

She was led back to the clearing where a fire had already been started and she was told to sit at the base of a tree several feet from the fire. Another one of the men stood watch over her as Miguel went back to the fire, talking with Dominguez. He pulled out what appeared to be jerky from a pack and brought it back to her, offering it and a canteen of water. She took the water gratefully, and accepted one piece of the jerky; her stomach was already rebelling, but she knew if she wanted to keep the oncoming migraine manageable, she needed to keep hydrated and her blood sugar up, so she forced herself to eat. The two men stood over her, eating themselves and talking quietly to each other. She didn’t even bother trying to understand them. When she looked up, she was unsurprised to find Dominguez once more staring at her.

When she was done, Miguel’s companion produced a rope. He flipped it around, twisting and knotting it in a complex manner, and she soon realized he was making ‘handcuffs’ out of it. He squatted down and slid her hands through the loops, tightening them around her wrists, then he brought the rest of the rope around the base of the tree she was leaning against, tying it tightly on the back side of the trunk. She was securely restrained now, her hands up against the trunk, but she still had room to move her body around to find a comfortable position. Miguel stood and eyed her with what looked like apology. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but Dominguez shouted at him from the fire. He pursed his lips, nodded at her, and went back to the others. Rey sighed and turned her body around so she could lean the right side of her head against the tree trunk; the throbbing was already starting there, and putting pressure on it helped. A bit.

She heard the conversation from the six men by the fire. It was subdued, and she instinctively knew they were discussing what to do with her. She briefly opened her eyes to look at them, but the resigned looks on their faces, and the way most of them quickly looked away from her when she glanced their way, let her know what they had decided. She wondered if they would just leave her here to die tied to the tree, or if they would be ‘merciful’ and put a bullet in her head first. Leaning her head against the tree once more, she began to pray the rosary, tears leaking from her eyes.

She dozed. There was nothing more for her exhausted body to do, and it helped ease the pain and nausea that continued to grow. It was very dark and very quiet when she became aware of noise behind the tree, and she lifted her head to look toward the fire. It was much lower than before, and she could see five shapes laying around it; she assumed the sixth man was keeping guard somewhere. She hoped he was the one making the noise; she assumed jaguar roamed this jungle and she didn’t relish being tied to a tree while one wandered into camp.

Rey tensed as she felt the rope binding her to the tree move, and suddenly it became slack. She moved ever so slightly to look around the trunk. A man was there, moving slowly and stealthily, and though she couldn’t see him clearly, she recognized the knife that had just been used to cut the rope; it was the same knife that had killed Teedo. She brought her hands down, the circulation in them returning in a rush, making them tingle, and she carefully slid her hands out of the loops, looking over at the fire with fear.

“Come around the tree, slowly,” Dominguez whispered in English.

Swallowing down her fear and ignoring the pain in her head, Rey carefully crawled around the tree. As she did so, Dominguez stood slowly, grabbing her arm with one hand and pulling her carefully to her feet. She almost lost her balance, her legs stiff from sitting in such an awkward position for so long, and she felt him grab her other arm to support her, his eyes flashing in the dim light coming from the fire as he looked toward the camp. He started to back up and pulled her slowly into the jungle. Into the dark.

A part of her wanted to rebel. He was taking her into the jungle to kill her, her inner voice shouted. He didn’t want to have to make his men do it, probably because they thought she was a nun, so he was going to do it himself. But the other part of her, the hopeful part, the part that had prayed the rosary so fervently earlier, trusted him. Whatever he was doing, it was to help her. She had to believe that.

He turned, keeping one hand on her arm, and continued walking into the dark. She saw him pull something down over his face, and her mind registered that he appeared to be wearing military grade night vision goggles. He could see, but she could not; the trust factor had increased tenfold.

Finally, he stopped, let go of her, and bent down. She could hear rustling and buckles rattling. He reached for her again, and his touch was surprisingly gentle. “Can you feel my pack?” he asked softly, with absolutely no accent. He brought her hands around to his backpack.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Hang on to it tight, Sister,” he told her grimly. “Keep your head down and don’t let go.” With that, he turned toward the dark jungle and began walking. Rey closed her eyes tight, gripped the pack tighter, kept her head down, and followed him into the dark.

******

The night seemed to drag on forever, and Rey felt almost like a robot as she continued to march along behind Dominguez. She kept her eyes shut; it was so dark she couldn’t see much, but her eyes kept trying to focus on things, and that only made her head throb even more, so she just kept them closed. Her grip on the pack on Dominguez’ back was strong, but a couple of times she felt her fingers slip, exhaustion and pain causing her to become disoriented. Both times, Dominguez stopped, turning toward her in the dark. He handed her a canteen and she drank as much as she could, then he stood quietly, as if waiting for her to decide when she was ready to continue on. He never spoke, but at her nod he helped place her hands back on the pack, and they continued on.

The third time her hands slipped, she almost stumbled and fell. He turned sharply and caught her elbows. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see grey light and the dark shape of the man in front of her; dawn was coming. She took a deep breath as he let go of her and once more handed her the canteen. She worried she was drinking all of his water, but she watched as he slipped out of the pack, placed it on the ground, then squatted down and pulled out another flask, taking a deep drink from it. He removed the goggles and shoved them in the pack, then looked up at her.

He nodded toward the bottle in her hand. “Finish that,” he told her. “We’ll be able to get more soon.”

As weak and pained as she was, she once more took note of the lack of accent in his voice. Or rather, the flat, mid-western American accent he spoke with, which was very different from the Spanish accent she had expected. She finished the water in the canteen and handed it back to him, watching as he placed it in the pack and closed it up. He stood and pulled the pack back on, looking at her as he did so. “Are you good, Sister?” His voice was quiet but easily audible over the growing cacophony of the jungle waking up around them.

“Depends on what your definition of ‘good’ is,” she quipped, then winced as a sharp pain stabbed her in the right temple.

He snorted. “I’d say that’s a ‘yes’,” he told her. “At least for what I mean.” He nodded to the side. “You don’t need to hold on to my pack anymore, right?”

Rey sighed and looked around her. It was getting lighter and lighter out. “No.”

He nodded, and without another word turned and continued to march off into the jungle. With another sigh, she followed.

It was several minutes before she spoke again, rubbing her right temple as she did so, trying to find a pressure point to help ease the stabbing feeling if only for a few seconds. “Where are we going?”

He glanced back at her, noticing her action. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he stopped.

“Nothing!” Immediate denial. It was automatic.

He turned to face her again, his head tilting to one side. “Sister?” There was a threat in his voice, but she felt no fear.

“I have a migraine,” she admitted. “I get them. It is what it is.”

“Medicine?”

“Back at the village, obviously.” Despite her agony, she couldn’t stop the sarcasm. Again, it was automatic.

He clenched his jaw and looked off into the jungle. “I’m sure you realize by now that if they catch us, they’ll kill us.”

She was surprised by his honesty, but pleased by it as well. “Then why are we standing here?”

She saw the corner of his mouth lift, and not for the first time found herself staring at his full lips, easily visible despite the beard. He nodded, then turned and started walking. She followed, swallowing down a surge of bile in her throat; her migraines rarely led to vomiting, but this one was a doozy, and her constant movement wasn’t helping.

“To answer your question,” she heard him say as they walked. “I’m taking you to a place where we can lie low for a while, safe and hidden.” He paused. “You can rest there.”

Rest. While that should have sounded wonderful, the migraine that throbbed through her told her rest would be impossible. All she could do was keep going, one step in front of the next, eyes on the ground so they didn’t have to focus on too much, her hand coming up every once in a while to rub her neck or put pressure on her temple. It wasn’t the first time she had had to push through one of these, and it wouldn’t be that last; it was her cross to bear, one she had been burdened with since she was a child. She was aware of the concerned glances her captor/rescuer gave her, and while she refused to acknowledge them, she felt tears seep from her eyes nonetheless.

He stopped one more time just as the sun started to penetrate the canopy, letting her take a break behind a tree, then giving her more water. She hadn’t really needed the break; she was sweating out all of the water she had drunk, both due to the growing heat of the day and the fever she knew her body was producing due to the migraine. She made eye contact with Dominguez briefly as she handed the canteen back to him and winced at the frown he was giving her. She knew she must look horrible. Pale, sweating, her right eye probably drooping and red, her head cocked at an angle as she tried to keep her neck stretched out. She took a deep breath and looked back at him steadily.

His brown eyes were amazingly gentle as they assessed her, so very different than the way they had looked back at the schoolhouse, than the way they had looked when he killed Teedo. He continued to stare at her for a while, then nodded sharply and turned again. She followed without hesitation.

The sun was fairly high in the sky when they came to a clearing bordered on two sides by a large natural rock wall. In the center was a small body of water, and Dominguez went right to it, immediately removing his pack and bringing out two empty water containers to refill. She walked up to stand beside him as he squatted next to the water, watching carefully. He was obviously very familiar with the area, and that comforted her a great deal. The jungle didn’t feel half as scary now.

He glanced up at her as he filled the canteens. “It’s a spring, comes out of the ground right here, so the water is clean,” he told her. “One of the few left out here that’s safe to drink without using purifying tablets.”

She nodded and looked around her. It was a beautiful spot, and she knew from experience it was probably an area where a great deal of the local wildlife gathered to eat and drink. When she looked back down at her companion it was to find him staring up at her, a questioning look on his face. “What?” she asked sharply.

“Can you climb a tree?”

She stared at him for a long time, wondering if her migraine was making her hallucinate. Did he really just ask her if she could climb a tree?

He stood from his squat, bringing the pack up and throwing it back onto his shoulders. She tried not to focus too much on the way the muscles in his bared forearms tightened and flexed as he settled the pack. She really was going crazy, wasn’t she? “Uhmmm,” she managed to utter as he continued to look at her expectantly.

She swore she saw a glint in his eye as he motioned toward a tall tree that sat between the spring and the rock wall. “Do you think you can climb that?” he asked again.

She looked up at the tree, furrowing her brow and then immediately rubbing her right one as the action intensified the pain there. “I can climb trees…” she started.

“That skirt won’t help,” he muttered.

Rey looked down at her long blue skirt. It and the white sleeveless blouse she was wearing over the blue camisole were modest and appropriate for working in a Catholic school, but they were dirty and sweaty and not made for hiking through a jungle. Or for climbing trees. With an exasperated sigh, she gathered up the skirt, bunching up the back and then bringing the front of it through her legs, pulling it up over her butt and bringing the ends around her waist, tying them together over her belly. She looked at him, a bit shocked to see a grin on his face. “Girding your loins, Sister?” he said, the laugh lines by his eyes prominent and fascinating.

“Whatever works,” she told him.

He nodded and motioned with his head to follow him. She watched as he began to climb the tree, pulling himself up from branch to branch. She followed, a bit more cautiously. While pulling her skirt out of the way gave her more maneuverability, it also left her legs bare to be scratched up by the bark of the tree. She looked up after every branch, wondering what exactly this effort was for; were they going to sleep in the tree?

Suddenly, she realized Dominguez had reached a branch that allowed him to step lightly over to a small ledge in the rock wall. He moved along the ledge a bit, and as Rey got closer, she noticed it wasn’t just a small ledge, it was an actual trail that led up the side of the cliff. She reached the branch and carefully stepped over to the bench in the rock. Dominguez grabbed her hand and helped support her; the ledge was narrow, but not impossibly so. When he was sure she was secure, he turned and continued walking up the path. She followed, in awe of the situation she had found herself in.

The path they walked along passed a small alcove in the rock. Dominguez stopped and motioned to it. “Bathroom,” he told her. He continued up the path a short way, and Rey’s awe grew as they entered a large cavern. It wasn’t completely enclosed, with several holes of various sizes in the rock wall to her right, the outer wall. The holes allowed light to filter in, but the cave was still cool and sheltered. “We’ll be safe here,” Dominguez told her. She noticed several boxes along the internal wall, and near the openings on the other side were stacked several blankets and sleeping pallets.

Dropping his pack, Dominguez set out spreading one of the padded pallets on the ground and added a couple of blankets to it. “You will still need to be quiet; people down below by the spring can hear conversation up here. And we won’t be able to have a fire, but I do have a cookstove, so when you’re ready, we can eat more than jerky.” He motioned toward the ‘bed.’ “You can rest here.” He moved back to his pack. “Are you allergic to any medication?”

Rey had walked over to the bed and kneeled on it, still a bit shocked by the events of the past few minutes. A secret cave. He had brought her to his secret cave in the jungle. “What?” she responded a bit late.

“I have a Percocet,” he told her. “I know pain meds aren’t always the best option for migraines, but it should help you sleep.” He pulled a pill vial out of his pack, then brought it over to her with a canteen and some jerky. “I’m not sure what the expiration date is, but it should still be good.”

She took the vial, the food and the water. She opened the small vial and let the single tablet drop into her palm. He had walked back over to his pack, grabbing another sleeping mat and spreading it out close to the entrance. She popped the pill, swallowing the water gratefully along with it. She knew he was right and the opioid wouldn’t do much for her migraine, but she was desperate, and if she could sleep until it was over… “Why do you have only one?” she asked suddenly.

He opened his mouth, but then hesitated. He looked at her, as if debating about how to answer. Finally, he told her, “I was addicted. Almost a year ago.” He took a deep breath and sat on the mat, removing his holster as he did so. “I carried that around as a sort of talisman, a reminder that I was stronger than it.”

She stared at him, her awe extending to him, now. A drug lord’s son addicted to opioids, and breaking away from the addiction on his own? Who was this man? And why was he doing this for her? So many questions ran through her burning brain, making it hurt even more. She ate the jerky automatically, knowing the drug she had ingested would upset her stomach if it remained empty. Soon, she felt her eyes droop.

“Sleep, Sister,” she heard him say from across the cave, his voice soothing. “You’re safe here. I promise.”

She believed him. And she slept.

******

When Rey opened her eyes, she was more than a little shocked to find herself in complete darkness once again. Just how long had she been asleep, she wondered? It hadn’t even been noon yet when they had arrived at this cave, and now it was night already? Slowly, carefully, she sat up, testing her head. It was blessedly quiet and pain free.

She heard movement from across the way and wasn’t surprised when a voice asked softly, “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she told him. “Much better.”

Faint light began to glow from something next to Dominguez. The cookstove, she realized. “Are you hungry?” he asked, and she could see his face now in the soft glow. His eyes looked even more intense than ever.

She took a deep breath, very aware of her empty stomach. “Yes,” she breathed. “But I should probably use your ‘bathroom’ first.”

She saw the corners of his lips turn upward. “You remember where it is?”

She nodded and stood, doing so carefully. After such an acute migraine, where every movement caused agony, she was always cautious, fearing a return of the pain. She was almost past Dominguez when she stopped and looked down at him. “Do I really have to walk on that ledge in the dark?”

He looked up at her, then turned to reach into his pack. He pulled out the night vision goggles and flipped them on, handing them up to her. “I doubt there is anyone close, but I’d rather not have you flashing a light around out there just in case.” He nodded at the cookstove. “This light is faint enough it can’t be seen from down below, but that’s about as bright as I dare get.”

She nodded and put the headset on. The harness was loose on her, so she had to hold up the goggles themselves to keep them in front of her eyes, but they worked. She made her way out of the cave and down the trail to the niche in the rock they had passed on the way up. In the far back was a man-made hole, and she used it as it was intended, wondering as she did so who else knew of this cave. She had a feeling Dominguez wasn’t the only one who hid out here.

Afterward, she made her way back up the trail, doing her best to not look down the cliff-side. While she did well with heights, vertigo was often an issue after a migraine. She entered the cavern and removed the goggles, recognizing the wonderful aroma of cooking meat and vegetables as she did so. She handed the goggles back to Dominguez. “That smells wonderful,” she said softly, still unsure exactly how friendly she should be to this man. He had undoubtably saved her life, but she still didn’t know why.

“It’s just canned stew,” he told her. “But when you haven’t had a decent meal in a while, it smells like heaven.” He grinned at her.

Rey’s breath caught. What the hell? Who was this man? And why, oh why, did he have this effect on her?

She started to move toward her pallet, but he stopped her with a word. “Wait!” She stopped and watched as he took the pan on the top of the cookstove off and poured half of the contents into a wooden bowl. He added a plain silver spoon and handed it up to her.

She took it carefully. “Thank you.” She moved to the pallet and kneeled down on it, watching as he took a second spoon and began to eat directly out of the pan. She too began eating, slowly at first, but it didn’t take long for her hunger to take over and before she knew it, she was scraping the bottom of the bowl.

She looked up at Dominguez to find that he was also done with his stew and was drinking from his canteen. She stared at his throat, suddenly fascinated with his Adam’s apple, watching as it moved while he swallowed. When the flask came down, she dropped her eyes, grateful the dark would hide the blush she knew had appeared on her heated face.

She took a deep breath. Okay, they had slept (at least she had), they had eaten, they were in a safe place. Now it was time for some answers. She opened her mouth to ask the first of many questions when he spoke.

“So, what’s with the accent?”

She stared at him, startled.

“Sister Clara said your group was from Wyoming,” he continued. “I’ve been to Wyoming. You don’t sound like you’re from Wyoming.” His voice was dry.

Rey huffed a laugh. “I grew up in Oxfordshire,” she told him. “My mother was from England. She and my father met at Oxford. He was a physics professor, she taught literature, I was born a few years later.” She paused. “My mum passed when I was twelve, and my dad packed us up and brought us back to where he grew up, Alderaan, Wyoming.”

“Twelve?” he asked. “And you still have the accent?”

She shrugged. “What can I say?” she quipped. “I don’t give anything away easily.”

He snorted a laugh. “I believe it.” He paused. “And your dad? Does he still teach?”

She looked down at the empty bowl still in her hands. “He died six months ago. Car accident.” She paused. “He’s part of the reason I came on this trip,” she told him. “He always wanted to do one of these mission trips, and never got to. When Finn asked if I wanted to go…” She glanced up at Dominguez.

His face was somber and he was looking down at his own empty dish. He stood suddenly, walking over to her. “I’ll take that,” he said as he reached for her bowl. She handed it up to him, looking at him, but he wouldn’t make eye contact with her.

“What about you?” she said as he turned away to put the bowls down next to the cookstove.

He looked at her then, one eyebrow raised. “What about me?”

“Tell me about your accent,” she said. “Iowa? Wisconsin? Illinois?”

He dropped down onto his pallet, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. He pursed those lips and looked off to the side, as if he was considering her question. Finally, he looked her in the eye. “Bannockburn.” He paused as she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Illinois,” he added with a smirk. “A suburb of Chicago.”

Rey nodded, then took a chance with her next question. “And how long have you been El Halcón?”

He stared at her, long and hard. He finally drew back a bit, and with a wince said, “Too long.”

There was silence for a long moment, then Rey asked softly. “So, who are you? Really?” She paused. “Local police? CIA? DEA?” Still no response, but he continued to stare at her, unflinching.

She shifted a bit, then pushed on. “I don’t think you’re local, despite how comfortable you are in this jungle. And a CIA operative wouldn’t care about me; I’d be an ‘unfortunate casualty’.” She tilted her head. “DEA?”

His stare was becoming a bit disconcerting.

She was about to look away when he spoke.

“Back in 1982, a woman by the name of Gina Coronel came down to Ajan Kloss on a two-week long vacation with some friends,” he began. “While she was here, she met and fell in love with a man named Luis Dominguez. She didn’t know who he was or what he did. Not until after she got pregnant.” He paused. “She ran home to Chicago and managed to settle in to a good life with her son. They never had financial trouble, as his father supported them without question, but Luis left them alone for the most part. Until he started getting older. Until he realized he needed an heir.”

Dominguez shifted, scooting back so he could lean against the wall behind him. “A few years back, Luis started trying to lure the son he had never met back ‘home,’ but José was quite content in Chicago. He had a good job managing a repair shop, he had good friends who regularly got high with him, he had a girlfriend, until she dumped him for a guy with more money. He had a sweet job dealing on the side, but it wasn’t quite enough. When his girl left him on his thirty-fifth birthday, he began to seriously consider visiting his father for the first time.

“Unbeknownst to him, the FBI had been following him for some time, knowing who his father was, while the DEA kept an eye on the senior Dominguez. One night, a deal went wrong, and the agents tailing him were the only ones to see poor José get knifed. They were there immediately giving him first aid, but he was gone by the time the paramedics arrived.” He glanced at her. “Nobody but the guy who did it and the agents were witnesses, so it was fairly simple to keep it quiet.

“The next day, a seasoned undercover DEA agent, one who was more than ready to retire, was recalled from his current assignment in Florida. Latino, close to the same age, a native of the Chicago area… it didn’t take long for him to become José Dominguez.” He leaned his head back against the rock behind him. “Within a week, he had accepted his ‘father’s’ invitation to come to Ajan Kloss.”

Rey took a deep breath. “How long have you been here?” she asked quietly.

“Two years, three months, and thirteen days,” he told her without hesitation.

Rey felt shock flow through her and she shifted uncomfortably on her pallet.

He met her eyes with his own and gave her a soft smile. “Two days longer than I should have been.”

“What do you mean?”

“The group of men I was with,” he continued. “They were heading to Ajara for a meeting with a group from the Ricardo Cartel. What they didn’t know and I did is that a Navy SEAL team is also in Ajara, ‘training’; there’s a U.S. Base on the coast just ten klicks away. I had plans to pick a fight between the two cartels. I would get caught in the crossfire, the SEALs would pull me out and sadly inform my ‘father’ that José Dominguez was dead. Not only would that hopefully start the war that I’ve been carefully planting seeds for between the two cartels, but…” he paused.

“You would be able to go home without having to forever look over your shoulder,” Rey finished for him. She shook her head. “Instead, you got stuck babysitting a bunch of kids and later, me.” She tilted her head at him. “Why did the police not come after us the other day?”

“One of the Federales in the village had a vendetta against Teedo; Teedo raped his thirteen-year-old sister.” He grimaced. “My guess is once they found Teedo’s body, they didn’t bother pursuing us.”

The small amount of sympathy she had for the dead man disappeared.

Rey was quiet for a while, then she asked, “How long are the SEALs going to be in Ajara?”

He gave a soft laugh. “I’m pretty sure they’ll be there until they get you safely out of the country, Sister. I have a feeling you are their priority right now.”

Rey blew out a breath as she realized the truth of his words. “So, we’re going to Ajara?”

He nodded. “And it’s not going to be an easy hike, Sister,” he told her. “Especially with two cartels on our tail.”

“Two?”

“I can guarantee you that the Ricardo’s are frothing at the mouth at the idea of killing me and ‘rescuing’ you. They’ll be racing the Dominguez’ to find us.”

“Great,” Rey mumbled.

“I’ll keep you safe, Sister,” he told her with a wry twist to his mouth. “And more than half of that SEAL team are friends of mine; they won’t leave until they get us out.”

Rey adjusted her seat, feeling exhaustion creep upon her again. But there was one more thing she needed to know. “What’s your name?”

“Poe,” he told her softly. “Poe Dameron.”

“I’m Rey Skywalker,” she returned with a gentle smile. “On that note, Poe Dameron, since we’re revealing our deepest, darkest secrets, there’s something you should know.”

He looked at her warily.

“I’m not a nun,” she told him with a shake of her head. “Sister Clara just told you all that in hopes it would keep me safe.” She snorted softly. “I guess it kind of worked.”

His eyes had widened as she spoke, and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but stayed silent. Finally, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have never been so happy to hear anything in my life!”

Rey felt her own eyes widen. “What? You have a problem with nuns?”

He laughed. “No! I grew up Catholic. I’ve known many fine women religious in my life.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just that the things I’ve been thinking… about you… well, I was pretty sure I was going to Hell having those thoughts about a nun.”

Rey covered her mouth with her hand, embarrassed, but ever so slightly charmed by his admission, too.

He raised a hand toward her. “Please, I don’t mean anything horrid by that!” he exclaimed, misinterpreting her reaction. “I promise you’re safe with me, I just…” he sighed and looked away. “I’ll just shut up, now.”

Rey finally let out the laugh she had been holding in. “I’m not worried,” she told him. “You’ve been nothing but considerate to me, and I have a sense that your actions are not dictated by my profession.”

“What is your profession?” he asked suddenly.

“I teach biology at the community college in Alderaan,” she told him with a smile. “I also work as a wildlife rehabilitator on the side.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, then she looked back up at him. “I’ve rehabbed many a falcon.”

His chin rose, and she could see the smile playing at his lips in the dim light from the cookstove. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

******

It hadn’t taken long for Rey to settle back into sleep once more; the migraine combined with all that had happened since the schoolhouse had completely drained her. When she opened her eyes once more, it was to the grey light of early morning. The jungle just outside the sanctuary of the cave was alive with the noise of birds and primates and insects of all sorts, and the sounds soothed her. Nature always tended to do that.

She lifted her head and looked in the direction of the cave entrance. Poe was still asleep, it seemed. When they had first settled in this hideaway, she had assumed he had placed his own pallet next to the entrance in order to keep control of her comings and goings, but now she knew it was to protect her. By being near the only access to the cave, he would be between her and anyone else who entered. His Glock, his knife, and the FN P90 that he had carried since the schoolhouse were lying close, all within easy reach. He lay on his side, facing her, his back to the wall next to the cave opening. It would be easy for him to grab a weapon and sit up to face the door if need be, but at the moment he was very obviously asleep.

She sat up, and his eyes opened immediately. Though still sleepy, they were alert and focused, and she knew that sleeping with ‘one eye open’ was his normal state of being right now. She wondered if he had had any real sleep in the last two years, three months and almost fourteen days. He glanced around as he sat up, assessing his surroundings in a heartbeat, then looked at her.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice rough, catching a bit.

He took a deep breath and shifted his position a bit. “Good morning,” he answered, his voice equally rough. Unlike hers, however, she liked how it sounded. Sleepy and sexy and… shut it down, Rey. Stop thinking of him like that!

She watched as he got up and walked over to one of the boxes on the back wall. He pulled out a package of what looked like granola bars and looked at it carefully. “They’re still good,” he said, looked back at her. “You want one?”

“Please,” she responded, then cleared her throat as her voice still sounded like a frog. He tossed one over to her, and then a second one for good measure. She caught them with ease and was extra glad her reflexes were awake and good, else they probably would have hit her in the face.

He went back to his pallet with his own bars and they began eating quietly. Their silence should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t on her part and she thought he looked content as well. When she was through with both bars, the grey light of pre-dawn was already turning golden outside. She assumed they would be heading back into the jungle today, ready to make their way toward Ajara, and that made her both nervous and excited. She opened her mouth to ask him exactly what his plan was when she heard voices. She jerked her head toward the openings in the wall behind her, then looked at Poe with wide eyes.

He had a finger up to his lips, and he quickly rose from his seated position and walked silently over to her, kneeling down next to her and crawling carefully over to the closest opening, which was very close to the floor of the cave. He lay on his belly and peered out. Curiosity took over, and Rey turned onto her belly and inched along quietly to lay next to him.

Four men were by the spring, filling up their canteens just as she and Poe had done upon their arrival here. She recognized two of them from the group that had taken her, Miguel and one whose name she had never gotten. The other two were unfamiliar to her, but she was pretty sure Poe knew who they were. The fact that they were here at the spring at sunrise told her they had probably camped not too far away. That thought gave her a moment of panic; she and Poe hadn’t been loud during their talk last night, but they hadn’t been quiet, either.

The men talked among themselves as they filled the canteens, and one of them pulled out a handheld two-way radio and began to talk on it. Rey could barely hear the response, but when she glanced at Poe, she knew he could. She also realized with that glance just how close she was to him, her shoulder brushing his. She looked back down at the men. Soon, they were talking to each other again, and after taking a moment to resettle their packs, they began to head off into the jungle, going back in the direction she and Poe had come from.

Suddenly, Miguel turned his head and looked right up at them. It was only a fleeting look, but the fact that he focused exactly on them made her start. She looked at Poe again, but his expression didn’t change. Miguel turned away and followed the others into the jungle. With a sigh, Poe backed up slightly, brushing against her as he did so, and sat up. She followed suit, not bothering to put any distance between them as they faced each other.

“What did they say?” she asked quietly.

“They’re giving up the search,” he told her, his own voice soft. “They know how hard I am to track, so they’re not going to waste the energy. Instead, they’re going to have men stationed at every village in a fifty-mile radius to wait us out.”

“Including Ajara,” Rey said. It wasn’t a question.

“Including Ajara,” Poe repeated with a nod. “That’s okay. I have friends there to help once we get there.”

They were silent for a moment, but then Rey asked, “Miguel knows about this cave, doesn’t he?”

Poe nodded again, and his eyes met hers. “It was his family that showed it to me.”

Rey opened her mouth in surprise. “And he won’t tell the others?”

“I don’t trust a lot of people down here for obvious reasons, but I have bet my life on him and his father in the past, and they have yet to let me down.” He nodded toward the spring. “He still hasn’t. He knew we were here.” He stood suddenly, looking at his watch. “Let’s give them a bit to put some distance between us and them, and then get going,” he told her. “Ajara is waiting.”

She watched as he began rolling up the pallets and folding the blankets and replacing them in the pile he had gotten them from. He moved over to the boxes and started removing cans of stew and another box of granola bars and put them in his pack. He pulled out another backpack and looked back at her, a question in his eyes, but then he sighed and looked back down at the boxes.

“What is it?” she asked.

He looked back at her. “I feel bad about asking, but can you carry a pack of your own?” He shrugged. “I don’t expect us to be out in the jungle for more than a week, but it would be nice to have enough supplies to last longer than that if we need them.”

She stood from her place on the floor of the cave and walked over to him. “Of course, I can!” she exclaimed. “What kind of question is that? You’re not some kind of old-fashioned Macho Man, are you?” she asked in a teasing tone.

He laughed. “No! I just feel bad about making you work when you really had no choice to be in this situation,” he explained.

“Well, the fact is that I’m here and I can help in whatever way you need me to. Load it up,” she told him, referring to the pack. She glanced out the ‘windows’ of the cave “And we can always live off the land if we have to,” she added.

Poe’s eyebrows rose. “You think you could dress and cook a tree rat?”

“Absolutely,” she answered. “I’m not a fan of hunting in and of itself, but my father made sure I would know how to survive in the wilderness if I had to.”

He lifted his chin and a small smile graced his lips. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Of course, the Big Horns are a lot different than the Amazon,” Rey added with sigh.

Poe laughed. “That they are,” he said as he continued filling up Rey’s pack.

She tilted her head at him. “Have you been there?” she asked. “The Big Horns?”

Poe nodded. “Yep. And the Tetons.” He glanced up at her. “I even spent some time in a compound in Montana near Glacier,” he told her.

“Undercover?” she asked and he nodded, looking back down at the pack. “What kind of groups?” she wondered aloud. “I can’t see right-winged militia or the Aryan Nation welcoming a latino.”

He grinned and looked back at her. “You’d be amazed at how ‘white’ I can look when I want to.”

She folded her arms and looked at him carefully, at his dark hair, thick eyebrows, and chocolate eyes. “I guess your job is a lot like being an actor, huh?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment. “In a way. But the key to undercover work is keeping the lie as close to the truth as possible.” He frowned. “And actors get to go home and be themselves at the end of the day,” he added softly. He zipped up the pack and stood, handing it to her. “Too heavy?”

She hefted it, and then gave him a mild glare. “Seriously?” she said as she swung it on her back. “I once had to carry one of my dogs down the mountain when he injured himself on a hike. He’s a seventy-pound coonhound.”

“In your arms?” Poe looked disbelieving.

“No,” Rey shook her head. “I rigged up a sling so I could carry him on my back.”

He walked over to his own pack and pulled it on, then grabbed up his knife and the P-90, attaching it to one of the shoulder straps on his pack so it hung at his side, easily accessible should he need it in a hurry. Then he reached for the Glock and looked at it for a moment. He looked back at her. “I’m assuming you know how to use a gun?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

He walked over to her, releasing the clip on the pistol and showing her the full magazine, then sliding it back in place. He handed it to her grip first. “Just in case.”

She accepted the weapon, acknowledging as she did so not only his trust in her but the very real danger they were both still in. She swung the pack back down and put the gun in the front pocket, where she could get to it easily. He nodded at her as she replaced the pack and then turned toward the cave entrance. She followed without a word.

Rey had to gather up her skirt again in order to make the climb down the tree from their hidden sanctuary, but let it drop back down to protect her legs once she was on the ground. She watched as Poe pulled out a combination compass/GPS, read it, and then headed off in a direction not quite opposite from the way they had come.

“Have you ever travelled this route before?” she asked him.

“Not by foot,” he admitted. “I know this jungle fairly well, but only up to the village we came from and Miguel’s village on the other side of that ridge,” he nodded back toward the rock wall they were leaving behind. “I’ve always travelled to Ajara by road.” He glanced back at her. “It’ll be an adventure!” he grinned.

“I’ve already had enough ‘adventure’ to last a lifetime,” Rey grumbled good-naturedly.

She heard him laugh softly at her response as he walked along. She followed, a smile on her own face. If she had to be lost in the jungle with dangerous killers on the lookout for them, she was glad she was with El Halcón.

*******

It wasn’t easy, just as Poe had warned, but Rey couldn’t help but enjoy it. It helped that her head was once again normal; though it ached, it was her ‘normal,’ everyday ache, not even close to migraine level. She drank often, and didn’t hesitate to pull out her own stash of granola bars to grab one to eat as they marched along. He would glance at her with a question in his eyes, and she would just look right back at him, a challenge in hers. He would finally just shake his head or roll his eyes and continue on, not daring to ask her if she needed a break or if she was feeling okay.

There was a game trail, at least, but it was very overgrown, and they had to push past quite a bit of undergrowth in some spots.

“How come you don’t carry a machete?” she finally asked at one point. “Isn’t that the norm for travelling through the jungle down here?”

He just laughed. “You watch too many movies.”

“Hey! Romancing the Stone is one of my favorites!” She grinned as he turned to look at her with his brows furrowed.

“How old are you, anyway?” he grumbled.

“Twenty-eight,” she told him. “I know, I know. That movie is older than I am. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good.”

“Twenty-eight?” he mumbled. “Practically a baby.”

“Oh! Like you’re so old,” she responded.

“Way older than you,” he countered.

“What? Thirty-five?”

He snorted. “Are you trying to suck up to me?”

“No!” she asserted. “Why would I do that? You’re already risking your life to get me out of this jungle safely.”

They walked along in silence for a while.

“No, really,” Rey continued, her curiosity getting the best of her. “How old are you?”

He was silent for so long she was convinced he wasn’t going to answer. But then he muttered, “Forty-one.”

It was so soft, she thought she might just pretend she didn’t hear him, but she just couldn’t let it go. “Good grief,” she groused. “You are an old man.”

He stopped sharp and turned to glare at her, but the glint in his eye told her he had recognized the sarcasm. “Old enough to remember Romancing the Stone when it was new.”

“Bullshit,” she told him with a grin. “You couldn’t have been more than a toddler when that come out.”

He laughed and turned to continue walking. The trail got rough again for a while and any conversation was put on hold as they concentrated on the journey, but soon they came to a fast-moving stream and Rey was unsurprised when he stopped, unhooked the P90, and immediately dropped his pack, setting the weapon carefully on top of it. “Lunch,” he said simply. “You may be able to eat while walking, but I need to sit down.” He did just that, pulling out his canteen as he did so.

“See?” Rey looked at him with raised brows. “Old.”

Grunting, he picked up a branch lying next to him and threw it at her. She caught it, laughing as she slipped her own pack off and sat down facing him.

After they finished eating, this time both choosing jerky over the granola, Rey stretched out one of her legs and began massaging her ankle. Poe watched her for a while, a contemplative look on his face.

“Those sandals don’t look very good for hiking,” he finally said.

“Well, if you want to direct me to the nearest REI, I’ll get a decent pair of boots.”

“Is sarcasm your native language?” he asked.

“Actually, yeah.” She drew her foot back in under her skirt. “The sandals are fine. My feet are a bit sore, but no blisters.”

“And that ankle?” He wasn’t giving up.

“Like I said, sore.” She shrugged. “I haven’t exactly had an easy couple of days, Poe. What do you want me to do about it? Give up?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I just…”

“Worry,” Rey completed. “How have you made it this far in this career by being a worrywart?”

“Didn’t I mention I was ready to retire when they pulled me for this job?”

She did remember him saying that. “What will you do?” she asked softly. “When you get home?” She didn’t say ‘if.’

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Get a job in law enforcement in some small town. Buy some land. Raise alpacas.”

Rey giggled. “Alpacas? Seriously?”

“Hey, my grandparents had them when I was a kid. They’re cool!” He was grinning again, but she honestly couldn’t tell if he was teasing her or serious. She suspected a bit of both.

“I like that idea,” she told him. She was silent for a moment. “I have some land. One hundred acres my father left me.” She shrugged. “I haven’t done anything with it, yet. I thought about getting a couple of horses; we used to have horses when I was young and I miss riding.”

“My grandparents had horses, too,” he said softly. “They got along great with the alpacas.”

Her eyes met his and they smiled.

She pulled back suddenly, her heart racing. “Yeah, but will alpacas get along with coonhounds?”

“How many do you have?” Poe asked, also seeming to draw back.

“Four,” she told him. “All rescues. Abandoned hunting dogs.”

Poe glanced at her and shook his head. “People suck.”

Rey laughed softly. “Yeah,” she whispered. “A lot of them do.” She paused. “But then there are others that make up for the bad ones.” She looked at him steadily, letting him know exactly who she was talking about.

He refused to meet her eyes, looking down at the canteen in his hands instead. He cleared his throat. “We should fill up on water and get going,” he told her.

She nodded, accepting the change in subject. “Okay.”

******

The afternoon was very similar to the morning, with lots of walking and the occasional back and forth banter between them. It was comfortable and distracting for her mind, but never slowed them down. They covered a lot of ground, despite the fact that they had to leave the game trail at one point and get deeper into the jungle. Rey couldn’t help but poke at Poe at that point. “Bet you wish for a machete now.”

Rey was definitely feeling tired and sore when the shadows started to take over; the sun was getting low.

Poe pushed on a bit more, but eventually determined that a small clearing with a tiny stream that pooled in the center would be a good place to camp for the night. In silence, they began to work together to make a modest campfire, each laying out their own blanket ‘beds’ on opposite sides of the blaze. Poe set up the mini pan he had brought from the cave and began to warm up more stew over the fire. Rey’s stomach began to rumble as the delicious smell enveloped her.

Silently, they ate, and once done Rey took both of their dishes and the pan over to the stream to rinse them, setting them off to the side to dry; he had cooked, she would clean, she determined. He watched her with a bemused look on his face, but said nothing. Once done, she sat back on her blankets, staring into the fire, feeling sleep creep up on her. She took a deep breath, unwilling to end the day quite yet.

“Do you still have family in Chicago?” she asked. Though her voice was quiet, it still seemed to break the silence a bit abruptly.

Poe, who had also been staring into the fire, looked up at her. “No, my dad moved back to his native Yavin a few years back.” Yavin wasn’t too far from Ajan Kloss, Rey knew, with a similar climate but a more modern government that focused on tourism; they didn’t have the drug problem Ajan Kloss did, and poverty was much lower.

“And your mom?”

He was silent for a while, but answered her with a soft look. “She died when I was eight. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” She said the words automatically, knowing they wouldn’t help with any lingering pain he might be feeling, but wanting to acknowledge that pain anyway. “My mother died from a brain aneurysm,” she said quietly. “I inherited my migraines from her.”

Poe frowned. “Are aneurysms common with migraines?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“Not necessarily,” Rey told him. “But it makes it that much harder for us to tell whether it’s a migraine or something deadly.” She shrugged. “She was just walking along with my dad and me, probably thinking it was just another migraine coming on, when she suddenly collapsed.” She gave him a brief smile. “I guess we never know, do we? When that day will come or how?”

He stared at her intently. “Yeah, I guess not.” He shifted, looking a bit uncomfortable as he focused on the fire once more. After a bit, he said, “We best get some sleep.”

She nodded and started to situate herself on her blanket, taking the second blanket she had brought and rolling it up as a pillow; the nights were so warm here there was no need to cover herself. Unless it started raining, the thought. It was the ‘dry’ season right now, but that didn’t mean rain wasn’t possible; it was a rainforest, after all.

As tired as she was, she felt wide awake after laying down. She watched the fire as is got lower and lower, and at one point looked past it to her companion, expecting to see him sleeping. But he wasn’t. He was watching her. She swallowed and closed her eyes, trying to focus on prayer; praying the rosary had gotten her through a lot of tough moments in her life, and it relaxed her and helped her sleep most times. However, rustling from the jungle behind her kept making her jump, and twice she jerked around to look over her shoulder.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, sleep seemingly getting farther and farther away, when Poe’s voice broke through the sound of all the singing nocturnal insects. “Come here,” he said gently.

She lifted her head to look at him. “What?”

He was propped up on his elbow, looking at her. “Come sleep next to me, so I can watch your back.”

Rey’s first thought was that sleeping next to him would be a very bad idea, but everything else in her approved of the suggestion. As independent as she was, she was nervous and scared, and the idea of sleeping close to him comforted her. Among other things. She took a deep breath and nodded, then got up, grabbing her blankets as she did so, and moved over to him. He scooched back away from the fire so she could lie between him and it, and she spread out her blanket and lay down facing the fire, her back to him. He didn’t touch her, but he lay close enough she could feel his body heat, and she felt her own body relax almost immediately.

Within moments, she was asleep.

******

The jungle was never silent. Whether it was two a.m. or two in the afternoon, the life-filled forest was awash with the sounds of animals of every sort. However, it was at daybreak the jungle noises seemed to be at their most deafening. It was this explosion of noise that woke Rey the next morning, and she lay there with her eyes closed, listening intently to the crazy music around her.

She finally opened her eyes, only to realize that sometime during the night she must have turned over and was now facing Poe. And she was very close to him. He was lying on his back, still asleep, his mouth slightly open and his breathing just shy of a snore. She felt her lip curl at the soft noise; it was rather endearing. She focused on his face, the thickness of the beard that covered his strong jaw, the hair that curled just above his ear, the sprinkle of grey that appeared here and there both on his head and in his facial hair. She made note that while his nose was a bit too large for his face, it did not detract from his appearance and in fact gave him an almost regal bearing. She remembered him mentioning that his father was from Yavin, which meant he himself was a descendant of the people who were native to this land.

As she lay watching him sleep, she acknowledged that she had never slept this close to a man in her life. It wasn’t because she didn’t like men, but she had never felt the kind of trust that was required to be physically close to a member of the opposite sex. She had never really determined why she was so distrustful. She was naturally introverted, and she often speculated that the death of her mother at such an influential age had made her fear abandonment, but she was no phycologist. As a teen, she had imagined falling in love, getting married, and having lots of babies, but real life hadn’t taken her on that path. Though she had made many male friends in her lifetime, whenever one of them took a chance and asked her out on a date, she would tuck her tail and run in the opposite direction. Even Finn, who had become her first friend when she and her father had come to Wyoming, hadn’t been able to cross that line. Rey was often thankful she had turned him down the one time he had asked her out as more than a friend, because now he and Rose were happily married with two kids. That proved it hadn’t been ‘meant to be,’ right?

Or maybe it should have been Rey who was married to him with two kids right now. Instead, she was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin staring obsessively at a man she barely knew who had spent the majority of his adult life pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

How had her life become so messed up?

Poe’s breathing changed and Rey watched as he turned on his side to face her, his eyes blinking sleepily a few times. His movement brought him even closer to her, and she lay as still as possible, wondering as he turned if his hair was a soft as it looked.

His eyes focused on her and widened a bit.

“Hi,” she breathed.

“Hi,” he returned, his eyes relaxing and a small smile appearing on his lips. But then his expression changed and he seemed flustered. He immediately pushed himself up and started to stand, his face looking almost panicked. Rey watched him and wasn’t sure if she should be flattered that this tough, brave man was so rattled because of her, or offended.

Poe gathered his blankets and started folding them. He glanced down at her. “How did you sleep?”

Rey sat up. “Good,” she answered him honestly. “Better than I thought I would.”

He nodded. “Good,” he echoed. He moved toward the remains of the fire and began to build it up again. “I have some canned chicken and rice,” he told her. “It’s not bacon and eggs, but it might be nice to have a good, warm breakfast.” He wouldn’t look at her.

Rey stood and took up her own blankets, folding them and putting them back in her pack which was still situated on the other side of the fire where she left it then night before. “Yeah, that sounds okay.”

There was no more talk as he heated up the food and they began to eat, but unlike their previous moments of silence this wasn’t comfortable. Rey was saddened, wondering what exactly she had done to make him so aloof. She already missed their light-hearted banter. Once done eating, they rinsed their dishes, filled their canteens, loaded up their packs, and headed out, neither of them uttering a word.

Rey watched as Poe checked his GPS, and was relieved when they ended up on another game trail. Despite the good sleep she had, she was still exhausted and sore, and the trails made traveling a bit easier. A couple of times, she attempted to instigate conversation, but Poe’s answers were always short and gruff, so she finally stopped, reminding herself that he was trying to save her life, not entertain her.

They were well into the morning and Rey was about to start singing to herself to break the tense silence between them when the first raindrops started falling. She sighed and looked up. She hadn’t even noticed the dark cloud coming over them. Poe also stopped and looked up, then he looked back at her, finally giving her a wry smile. “You do realize we’ve been lucky so far with the lack of rain, right?”

She nodded. “I know.” She shrugged. “I won’t melt,” she told him, then motioned ahead of them, down the trail. “Carry on.” He snorted and turned to continue walking as the rain got harder. Rey muttered, “Quietly.”

She didn’t think she said it very loud, but his head turned back toward her a bit, enough she could see the frown on his face.

Suddenly, something dropped from the tree above her, landing at her feet. She jumped and yelped in surprise as Poe turned toward her, his hair already plastered to his head from the downpour. Rey looked down and stepped back abruptly as she realized it was a snake that had fallen almost on top of her. Her heel caught on a tree root and she felt herself falling backwards. As she landed hard on her rear, the tan and brown colored snake raised its head to face her. Rey knew immediately it was venomous due to the shape of its head. Her heart started racing as she tensed, ready to throw herself backwards.

“Don’t move!” Poe shouted. He was unhooking the P90 from his pack and Rey watched him with wide eyes. What was he gonna do? Shoot it? It was practically on top of her feet! But he didn’t aim the weapon at the snake. Instead, he pulled out what she knew must be the suppressor and attached it to the barrel of the gun, lengthening it. Then with one smooth motion, he brought it up under the snake, tossing it into the underbrush. They both watched as it slithered away, as happy to escape them as they were to have it go.

With the rain still pouring down, Poe clipped the weapon back onto his pack and then reached down for her with his hand.

“Where I come from, snakes don’t fall from trees,” she panted, grasping his forearm. He pulled her up, but with both of them wet from the rain her hand slipped before she was completely on her feet. “Whoop!” she gasped.

Poe grabbed her with both hands under her arms, pulling her toward him with force. “I got you!” She slammed into his chest, grabbing his shoulders in an almost desperate grip. They stood there, face to face, rain pouring down around them. Rey stared at him, trying to find the funny, smart, compassionate man she had gotten to know yesterday in the serious face before her. There he is, she thought as she looked into his warm brown eyes.

She wasn’t at all surprised when he moved in to kiss her. It was almost as if she had been waiting all morning for it to happen, ever since they had woken up so close to each other and he had run away. He wasn’t running now.

Rey may have been sexually inexperienced, but she had been kissed before. Several times, in fact, in her teens. But those sloppy, clumsy kisses from her youth were nothing like this. His mouth was as soft as she had imagined, and when she let herself sink into this kiss with an almost embarrassing moan, he responded by parting those incredible lips. The touch of his tongue to her lips sent shock waves throughout her entire body, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, letting her fingers run through the wet hair at his nape. His arms had wrapped around her lower back, with one hand sliding down to cup her butt, pulling her even closer to him. Dear Lord, she thought as she felt something against her hip. Was that..?

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the shock of it had them both drawing apart, but not before Poe sucked on her bottom lip gently, running his tongue along it one last time. He moved back just enough to look at her, and she felt a shiver run through her; she wasn’t sure if it was due to his heady expression or a chill from the rain. She watched as he sighed and swallowed. “I’ve been trying all morning to not let that happen,” he told her softly.

“Well, I’m glad you failed,” she responded, bringing her hands to rest on his shoulders once more.

“Jesus, Rey,” he groaned, letting his head fall forward so his forehead rested on her shoulder. “This is not something we need right now.”

She brought a hand up to thread her fingers through his wet hair again, tugging on it slightly. “Or maybe it’s exactly what we both need right now,” she argued.

He lifted his head to look at her, his brow furrowed. “I…”

He stopped as Rey’s whole body tremored again. Yeah, she was definitely chilled.

“We should keep moving,” he told her. “We’ll stay warmer that way.”

Rey nodded, feeling the shivering strengthen. He slowly let her go and turned to continue down the now muddy trail. She followed, reaching up to touch her lips. She hadn’t imagined that kiss, had she? The sun appeared once more, quickly warming them, but first one cloud, and then another proceeded to dump more rain on them. Finally, Poe stopped and dropped his pack. Rey gratefully followed suit; walking through the mud in her sandals was extra tiring.

She ate a couple of granola bars, watching as Poe did the same. He didn’t seem to be as cold and aloof as he had been before the kiss, but he still wouldn’t look her in the eye. “What kind of snake was that?” she finally asked him out of curiosity, but also wanting to get him to talk.

“It was a lancehead,” he told her. “Pit viper. Very venomous.” He shook his head in dismay. “I carry a bite kit, but no antivenin. You got lucky.” He paused. “We both did.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Rey told him. “Everything happens for a reason,” she said with a shrug. “Even if it’s not a very pleasant one.”

He finally focused on her. “So, you’re saying what? That God almost allowed you to get bit by a dangerous snake just so I would kiss you?”

Rey grinned. “Sure. Why not?”

Poe just rolled his eyes, but she could see the smile he was trying to hold back.

******

The rest of the afternoon was probably the most miserable Rey had been since she had recovered from her migraine. More short but violent rain showers plagued them for the next couple of hours, and even after the last of the clouds moved away and the sun decided to stay, the humidity was so high nothing would dry. The trees continued to drip, Rey’s clothing clung to her damp body, and she slipped and slid through the mud in her sandals.

Poe tromped through the mud without any problem in his boots, but Rey was constantly shortening and lengthening her steps to try and stay on rocks, roots, and vegetation; anything but mud. It was exhausting.

Poe never once asked how she was doing or if she wanted to stop, and part of Rey resented that fact. But the other part of her acknowledged that she would probably deny anything was wrong if he did ask. When they came to a rocky clearing with another natural spring in it, he stopped, looked around and nodded. “This will do.”

Rey stopped, brushing damp strands of hair out of her eyes. “For what?”

“For tonight’s camp,” he told her, looking at her like she should have known that.

Rey looked up at the now blue sky. “It’s not even close to sunset, yet,” she argued.

Again, he gave her a look. “You really want to keep going until sunset?” His eyes searched her, looking her up and down with raised eyebrows. There was nothing sexual in his gaze. Only exasperation and a bit of concern.

She looked down at herself. At her muddy feet, her mud-stained skirt, her tremoring arms. She sighed and looked back at him, conceding defeat. He hadn’t needed to ask how she was doing; he knew. She nodded. “Okay,” she told him. “We’ll camp here.”

He grinned at her, and it was the first time he had done so that day. “That’s my girl,” he told her. “You push yourself too hard, Rey,” he said as he dumped his pack and set out to try and find dry wood for a fire. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued. “I admire your toughness and your tenacity, but you need to take care of yourself, too. You get hurt or get another migraine, what then? That’s not gonna get us to Ajara any faster.”

She slid her own pack off and moved to sit on a boulder next to the spring. “I know,” she said softly. “I just hate slowing you down.”

He stood straight from having grabbed up a branch. “Slow me down?” he told her. “This isn’t about me, Rey.”

“But I’m the reason you’re not back home right now,” she argued.

He snorted. “Home? I don’t really have a ‘home’ to go back to. They’ll have to ‘debrief’ me for a couple of weeks, at least, when I get back. Make sure I’m mentally stable enough to go back to the ‘real world’.” He shrugged. “I’m just happy to not have to be Dominguez anymore, whether it be here or in the U.S.” He nodded toward the stream that flowed out from the spring. “Why don’t you clean up? We made great time yesterday; we can afford to take some time to rest today.”

Rey moved over to the stream and took her muddy sandals off. She stepped into the cool water and proceeded to scrub off as much mud as possible from her feet, the sandals, and the bottom of her skirt. As she did so, she glanced over at Poe as he continued to search the area for wood dry enough for a fire. She could tell he wasn’t very successful, but he took several branches and propped them up against each other in the sun. He noticed her watching and nodded to his little pyramid. “They’ll dry faster this way. I should be able to make a fire before sunset.”

He settled on a rock next to Rey, washing his hands with the biodegradable soap he carried in his pack, handing the bottle to her when he was done. She used a very small portion to wash her own hands, knowing he had only the one bottle. She handed it back to him, asking as she did so, “Where will you go when you’re done with your debriefing?”

He sighed and looked intently at the water. Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll probably stay in Virginia for a while. I’ve got most of my stuff in storage there.” He glanced at her. “What little there is.” He shifted a bit. “I could go to Coronado. In California. That’s were Snap and Iolo are stationed right now.”

“Those are your Navy SEAL friends?” she asked.

Poe nodded. “Yeah. They’ve been my back-up on more missions than I can count. They’re the best friends I’ve got,” he added softly. He looked at her. “You still have family in Wyoming?”

“Yes,” Rey answered. “My aunt, my dad’s sister, and her husband.” She grinned. “They pretty much run Alderaan County. Leia used to be our mayor, and she probably still would be if she hadn’t retired last year. Han is our sheriff and I don’t think he’ll ever retire. He’s tough, a bit of a hard-ass, but fair.” She looked at him intently. “It’s a good place.”

He acknowledged her unspoken invitation with a small smile.

They chatted about everything and nothing for a good two hours. Rey enjoyed Poe’s sense of humor and couldn’t help but laugh at what she called his ‘dad jokes.’ They seemed to come out of nowhere, not related at all to whatever subject they had been discussing. She also couldn’t help but get a bit of a thrill whenever she said something clever that made him laugh. Not only did it make her happy to make him happy, but he was simply beautiful to watch when he laughed.

As the sun got lower, the temperature also dropped, the rain storms from earlier in the day having cooled the atmosphere more than normal. Poe immediately started the fire, the wood he had set out ready to go, and then laid one of his blankets by it for them to sit on. There was no question that they would sit next to each other rather than on opposite sides of the fire tonight.

They ate, still conversing the whole time. Rey couldn’t help but be amazed that Poe had worked undercover jobs like he had for so many years and could still be so open about his life and experiences with her. She, in return, felt more comfortable telling him things about herself than with any other person in her life, even Rose, who she considered her best friend.

Finally, conversation stalled as exhaustion once more took over. Poe settled on his side on the blanket, once more facing the fire, and Rey positioned herself with her back to him like the night before. As she arranged her own blanket/pillow, she felt his arm come up over her, bringing his second blanket over them both; the cooler night warranted something to keep them warm. For a moment, she thought he would keep his arm over her, but she soon felt him draw it back. Without thought, she reached up and grabbed his wrist, preventing him from moving his arm out of its current position. He tensed for a moment, but then relaxed and let his arm drop down and rest on top of her. She let go of his wrist and felt him move closer to her so that his front was flush up against her back, then his arm slid down to encircle her waist. With a small smile, Rey fell asleep.

******

Rey wasn’t sure what woke her the next morning, but she immediately became aware that her position hadn’t changed much from the night before, and for that she was glad. She shifted ever so slightly, very aware that Poe’s arm had moved up from where he had placed it last night and his hand was very close to her breast, his curled fingers just brushing the inner curve. If he moved those fingers just a bit…

A loud huffing sound caught her attention, and her eyes shot open. In the grey light of the early morning, she could see what was making the short, sharp roaring noise. An adult male jaguar was on the other side of their fire pit, watching them with large golden eyes. Rey’s mouth opened in astonishment and she felt her heart start to thump wildly in her chest. She felt Poe’s fingers move, but not how she had envisioned them moving before opening her eyes. His hand moved down under her breasts and she felt him place his palm firmly against her ribcage, almost as if he was holding her steady. She knew then that he was awake and watching the big cat just as she was.

The jaguar huffed a few more times, then padded over to sniff at Rey’s pack. Her eyes roamed the huge feline, one of the strongest, most dangerous of all wild animals. His feet had to be as big as her hand, if not bigger. And those canine teeth? She didn’t even want to imagine what damage they could do to her. Yet, she wasn’t so much afraid as simply excited. The adrenaline pouring through her was almost overpowering. She heard Poe’s whisper in her ear. “He’s just checking things out. He’s not hunting.”

Rey swallowed and nodded ever so slightly. The cat continued to move about the clearing, glancing at them every so often. He moved toward the spring, hunkering down to reach the water, and she watched in fascination as he drank. Just like her domestic cats back home, his tongue curled backward as he lapped up the water rather than forward like a dog. He suddenly sat up, his attention toward the jungle he had come from. More huffing came from the trees and Rey felt her heart stutter. Another one? But the sounds didn’t come closer and the male, giving them one more annoyed glance, bounded off toward the cry.

Rey released the breath she just realized she had been holding. She turned her face up to look at Poe, who had lifted his upper body so he could look down at her. The look of awe on his face must have mirrored hers. “Off to join his mate, I’m assuming,” he whispered.

She smiled. “That was amazing,” she said softly. He smiled back, but the smile began to fade and his eyes seemed to darken as he continued looking at her. She met his gaze, challenging him. He accepted her challenge, dipping his head down to take her lips with his own. She responded by bringing her hand up to cup the back of his head, threading her fingers through his thick hair. The adrenaline pumping through her found an outlet as she eagerly met his tongue with her own.

Good God, the man could kiss. He didn’t just use his lips and tongue, but his whole mouth. She felt as if he was trying to swallow her whole, and she was perfectly okay with that. He shifted and leaned over her, pushing her onto her back, and the hand that had been resting on her ribcage finally did what she had been hoping it would do since she woke up. He cupped her breast with it, his large hand completely enveloping the small mound of sensitive flesh. She arched her back, pushing up into his touch and moaned into his mouth.

He pulled away, gasping for air, and she realized that his eyes looked as dark as they did because his pupils were blown wide open. She had read about that, and wondered if her own eyes had dilated with desire. He looked at her for a moment, then his head dipped down and those lips found her neck. His beard tickled, and she smiled as she lifted her chin, offering him more skin to suck and lick. She felt moisture pool between her legs and gasped. Never had anything other than her own imagination caused such a reaction. She swallowed, and pushed lightly on his shoulder. “Poe?” she breathed.

Somehow, he heard her. He lifted his head, his eyes hooded and provocative, focusing on her.

“I…” she started. She took a deep breath. “I’ve never done this before.”

He looked at her for a long while, almost as if he couldn’t comprehend what she had said, but soon he was blinking rapidly, as if he was waking up from a dream. “Never?” he whispered incredulously.

She licked her lips and shook her head. “Never.” Then she amended her statement. “I mean, not with someone.” She felt her face heat at that admission. She was definitely going to have to go to confession when she got home.

Poe pushed himself up a bit more on the one arm that wasn’t touching her. He tilted his head at her. “How?” he asked, his voice still disbelieving. “How can a woman as beautiful and perfect as you be untouched?”

She felt her face heat even more at his compliments. She bit her lip and shrugged. “It’s a long story?”

He huffed a laugh, then looked off in the direction the jaguar had gone. He swallowed, then he pushed himself off of her, untangling the blanket that had been covering them as he jumped gracefully to his feet. Rey felt bereft as the heat and weight of his body left her. She lay there for a while, listening as he moved over to the firepit and started fiddling with it. She sat up slowly and looked at him. He seemed to be thinking hard as he squatted down, poking at the ashes with a stick.

He looked at her intently, then stood suddenly and moved over to his pack, pulling out his GPS. He looked at it, then looked back at her. “How about we eat a cold breakfast this morning so we can get moving ASAP?”

Rey swallowed. Well, that answered that. “Okay.” But she wasn’t going to leave it at that. “Why?”

“There’s a place I know not too far up ahead. Miguel and his father showed it to me around the same time they showed me the cave, but I’ve never been back to this spot. It’s less than a day’s hike from Ajara, but it’s secluded. Secret.” His look became intense. “It’ll be a good place to rest up before we get to Ajara and whatever awaits us there.” The corner of his mouth curled up and one eyebrow raised suggestively. “You’ll love it.”

Rey began to wonder if he hadn’t really changed the subject after all. If this ‘secret’ place was meant for more than resting. Don’t get your hopes up, Rey, she told herself. She nodded to him.

“Let’s go.”

******

Rey couldn’t figure Poe out. He was wired and excited, chattering on almost constantly as they marched through the jungle. Every once in a while, he would stop to check his GPS, but he rarely changed course after he did so, telling her how good his sense of direction was. His nervous energy kept her moving faster than normal, too, so she never felt as if he was pushing her, and she couldn’t help but feed off of his positivity, laughing and commenting at whatever story he was telling.

“What do you call a dog that can do magic?” he asked her at one point, looking back at her with his eyebrows raised.

Oh, God. Another ‘dad joke,’ she thought. She shrugged.

“A Labracabrador,” he told her with a grin.

Rey couldn’t stop the giggle. “You’re horrible,” she told him with a grin. “You and Finn would really get along,” she added. “He’s always quoting horrible puns, too.”

“Finn?” he asked. “That the guy that was with you at the school?”

“Yeah,” she said. “His dad is one of our deacons. They were who I came to Ajan Kloss with.” She shrugged. “We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

He glanced back at her, his expression a little less enthusiastic than before.

“They’re okay, right?” she asked suddenly. “I had assumed everyone at the school was safe when Dominguez’ men left.”

“Yeah,” Poe said. “They’re probably back home by now.” He looked at her again. “He’s probably already been interviewed by the press, with them asking how he feels about you having been kidnapped by the notorious El Halcón.”

She scoffed, but then fussed. “He and Rose are probably worried sick.”

“Rose?”

“His wife,” Rey answered.

“Oh.”

Though only a short little word, Rey recognized something in it. “Wait? You didn’t think Finn and I were a couple, did you?”

His glance told her he had. He shrugged, his face slightly embarrassed. “It would make sense. Your boyfriend being devout like his dad would explain why you’re still a virgin.”

Rey blushed. “I did want that,” she told him, her eyes watching the ground in front of her. “When I was younger. You know, to wait until marriage.” She lifted her shoulders. “Now I just want to love and be loved.” Her voice was soft.

He stopped so suddenly she almost ran into him. He turned to face her, his eyes level with hers. “The guys in your town must be fools.”

“Or maybe I just didn’t want any of them,” she said. “Maybe my heart knew I was waiting for someone else.”

He stared at her for a long time, his eyes searching her face. He swallowed and whispered, “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky man.”

Rey stepped into him and brought her lips up to his. “There’s no such thing as luck,” she whispered back, nuzzling his nose with hers, feeling the hair from his beard tickle her lips.

His eyelids drooped and his lips parted, and she felt his breath brush against her lips. They parted in response, but before she could close her eyes, he pulled away from her, spinning back around and moving away. “We’re almost there,” he told her, clearing his throat when his voice came out rough.

Rey sighed, frustrated but amused at the same time. It was obvious she was getting to him, and she had no intention of quitting now. She was determined and she had a plan.

She was not going to leave Ajan Kloss a virgin.

They continued on in silence, but as Poe said, it wasn’t much farther to their destination. He looked back at her and grinned as they moved through a particularly thick area of vegetation, and she couldn’t help but smile back. They entered a clearing and Rey stopped and stared in wonder.

They were surrounded by natural rock walls on three sides, with the one in front of them being a huge cliff face that rose at least two hundred meters off the floor of the jungle. And flowing from that cliff was a waterfall, a beautiful veil of water dropping down to a clear pool below. Rey looked up and around at the secluded area, which looked so different from the rest of the jungle they had been moving through. It was green and lush like the rest of the forest, but it was obvious the area didn’t get as much sun so moss grew all over the surrounding rocks. The light that did filter in produced a green glow.

She looked over at Poe who was watching her with a small smile on his lips. “It’s beautiful,” she told him. “It’s like a dream.”

He nodded up toward the top of the waterfall. “It’s a bit of a climb, but not too hard,” he told her. “Then we just follow it upstream right to Ajara, which is less than twelve klicks away.” He slipped off his pack. “But we won’t worry about that until tomorrow.”

She watched as he set his pack down next to a rock in the middle of the clearing, then sat on the rock and began to remove his boots. He looked at her and she could see an excited glint in his eye. “The water is clean, safe, cool, and ready for us,” he told her.

“You mean, for bathing?” Rey’s voice squeaked a bit. Okay, this isn’t exactly what she had planned, but… she could make it work.

“Yep,” Poe responded. Barefoot now, he stood and began to unbutton his shirt. “Just take off what you’re comfortable with, Rey,” he told her softly. “I’m not planning a skinny-dip here.”

She huffed a laugh, relieved and disappointed at the same time. Then her breath caught as she saw Poe Dameron without a shirt for the first time.

He was perfect. That’s the only word she could think of. He was muscled without being bulky, his tan skin smooth, his pecs flawless, his abdomen exhibiting just enough of a six-pack to let her know just how fit he was. She saw no hair on his chest, which surprised her considering the amount on his head and face, but her eyes quickly found the dark trail that started under his belly button and disappeared under his cargo pants. She pulled her eyes up and noticed the chain around his neck. She had known he wore a necklace, but she had never seen what it was. Now she saw the ring that hung from it. A simple band of silver.

A woman’s ring.

She looked away, removing her own pack and setting it down, swallowing as she saw him unbuckling his belt out of the corner of her eye. Was that a gift, she wondered? Something a woman back home gave to him as a memento, a good luck charm, a reminder of what he had waiting for him? Who he had waiting? He had never given any indication there was a woman back home; he had only talked of his SEAL friends. Still, what else could it mean?

He moved toward the water, still wearing his form-fitting boxer briefs. She couldn’t help but track him with her eyes, watching his amazing hips and ass as he stepped into the water. She licked her lips as she made herself look away, then started to unbutton her own blouse. She had a camisole on underneath, and she would keep her panties on; she would be revealing less than if she was wearing a bikini. Which she had never done. Modest one-piece swimsuits had always been her norm. She glanced at her companion, who was now waist deep in the pool and had turned back to look at her. She would wear a bikini for him, she thought.

“Are you coming?” he asked, and a part of her resented the knowing smirk on his face. He had known where they were going. He had known what he was going to do. He had a plan, different from hers.

Well, as long as the results were the same, who was she to argue?

Rey pulled off her blouse, then slipped out of her sandals and skirt. For a brief moment, she thought about just going all the way and stripping down completely, but not only was she not that brave, she wanted more than anything to have him remove what was left. So, with purpose, she marched down to the water’s edge, feeling his eyes on her the whole time, and stepped in.

******

End of Part One

Part Two