avoiding responsibility.
“I’m quite capable of carrying my own bag.” She planted her feet in a belligerent stance, one hand on the strap of her equipment bag, her other lifted to her forehead blocking the sun.
“I’ve no doubt you are . . . capable, I mean.” Luke didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this was definitely not it. The name Lacey Sommers, and all it implied, didn’t fit the woman standing in front of him. There was certainly nothing frilly about her. Tall, tanned, and muscular, she couldn’t be accused of being girlie, but neither was she the care-worn, jaded photographer he’d envisioned. A knot of desire formed in his stomach.
Dressed in an army-green camisole, khaki cargo shorts, and a pair of worn hiking sandals, she appeared quite capable . . . of many things. The color of her eyes, hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, piqued his curiosity.
Her only adornments were a heart-shaped garnet that hung from an antique-gold chain and an enormous Breitling watch strapped to her left wrist. He recognized the expensive brand as one he often saw on his ex-father-in-law’s wrist. No engagement or wedding ring, but there must be a rich boyfriend in the picture. A girl didn’t buy those things on a staff photographer’s salary.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Hancock, I’m no helpless female. I don’t need pampering.”
She lifted that Breitling-adorned hand to tuck a golden strand of hair behind her ear. The simple movement caused a firm bicep to ripple beneath the smooth bronze of her skin. That’s when he noticed the vicious white scar that ran across her neck; jagged at the edges, yet straight and about three inches long, very near the carotid artery.
Her short wavy hair curled tantalizingly around her throat as if to caress the scar. He swallowed hard, wondering how such a lovely neck had been so brutally desecrated.
Dragging his gaze from the scar, he said, “That’s good,” before striding off toward his Jeep without waiting for her. “I’m not the pampering type.”
After a perilous ride through the jungle in the open-air, doorless Jeep, fording flooded streams, and bouncing over muddy potholes that could have swallowed compact cars, Lacey’s right side was covered in water, mud, and who knows what else. Not to mention, her neck felt like she’d been riding a bucking bronco.
She began to wonder if her editor were secretly trying to get rid of her when they finally arrived at the gates of a resort tucked among strangler figs and Kapok trees, still dripping from a recent rain. The sign, adorned with an enormous Blue Morpho butterfly, read MARIPOSA LODGE.
Built on a thousand acres of pristine tropical lowland rain forest three hundred fifty feet above the point where the Gulfo Dulce and the Pacific Ocean collided, the eco-resort offered visitors a peaceful retreat; something she hadn’t had in she couldn’t remember when. But she wasn’t there to relax. She was there to save her career. If she screwed this up, she’d be relegated to shooting screaming kids on Santa’s lap.
The last conversation with her editor still rankled. When she’d gone in for her assignment, she’d been hoping for the story on gorilla poaching in the Congo. She should have known better after the previous incident in Africa, but she’d never expected this.
Not one to toot her own horn, she hadn’t hesitated to trumpet away under the circumstances. None of her arguments had worked on him.
“Look, Lacey, you’re the best photographer around, but I can’t have a repeat of Tanzania.” Simon shook his head, his bushy eyebrows drawn together in a unibrow.
“But frogs! Christ. It’s humiliating.” There was no way she was telling Simon about her fear of frogs, that the slimy little things gave her the willies.
“Damn sight less humiliating than a meltdown.” His voice became placating. “Listen, go down to Costa Rica, get some great shots of the poison dart frogs and any other wildlife you come across and we’ll see. Should be a nice, easy assignment for you. Maybe you can even squeeze in a little R & R while you’re there.”
“Come on, Simon, please—”
“Damn it, Lacey, this is it. You either do this, or . . . you’re out. I’m sorry.” He’d held his palms up in resignation.
Luke’s big hand jostled her shoulder, snapping her back to the present.
“Hey, Sommers, we’re here.”
No sense brooding over her situation anymore. It is what it is. She’d get the best damn pictures of frogs the magazine had ever seen and then she’d go