“Basta! Or I’ll shoot.”

Jed didn’t stop. Half expecting a volley of machine gun bullets to plow into the vehicle, he kept his foot pressed on the gas. A few seconds later he decided the guard was no fool. El Jefe himself was in an open car on the field. Any shots would endanger the general’s life.

However, Jed was taking no chances. As quickly as he could, he put the troops between himself and the sentry. When the vehicle zoomed onto the grass, their precise formation dissolved into disarray. Some men stopped in their tracks, a few kept marching. Most broke into a run as if they’d been scattered by the rising wind. It would have been comical if Jed had been watching it on a movie screen. But this wasn’t make-believe. It was Marissa’s life.

The only soldiers who weren’t aware of the disturbance were the ones escorting her toward the wooden stake about fifty yards away. Marissa walked between the uniformed men with her head held high and the breeze blowing the hair back from her face. She made it look as if she was the one in charge, not they. What was it costing her to march to her death with such composure?

As he watched, he felt a hard knot of anxiety inside his chest burst into sharp pieces, sending pain stabbing through his lungs. Lord, what if he’d been a few minutes later?

Behind him he could hear Sanchez snapping out angry orders. Then a troop of running feet hammered toward the Land Rover. Jed didn’t wait for the squad to reach him. Screeching to a stop, he jumped out of the vehicle. Marissa wasn’t out of danger yet. Neither was he. But he proceeded with what he hoped looked like unswerving confidence.

“Change of plans,” he barked in Spanish.

At the sound of his voice, the men holding Marissa dropped her arms and whirled.

She was thrown off balance. Swaying in the gale, she turned on shaky legs and stared around uncomprehendingly as if she’d suddenly awakened from a nightmare and wasn’t sure she was really conscious or where she was.

He saw her eyes snap into focus and zero in on him. He wasn’t surprised as they widened the way they always did when the two of them first met. Yet this time he knew there was more behind the look than usual. He saw panic, relief and disbelief all warring with each other.

“Jed?” His name was a mere wisp of sound on her trembling lips.

“Come to get you out of this mess, honey bee.” He was surprised to be struggling with the rough quality of his own voice. Momentarily, he was as shaken as she.

Tottering on shaky legs, she took a step toward him. At the same time she made a tiny, muted sound that was half sob, half exclamation.

Chaos swirled around the two of them. But it seemed to fade into the background. Marissa was the sole focus of his attention. And she was looking at him with the same intensity.

Closing the distance between them in a few sure strides, he caught her in his embrace and held her tightly, achingly aware of how small and fragile she felt. Like a fluttering bird he’d freed from a trap.

She slumped against him. He wasn’t sure when she took hold of his shoulders, but he felt her fingers digging into his flesh so hard that he knew he would see the marks when he got undressed that night. Then her whole body began to tremble.

He bent his head and spoke low and urgently in her ear, glad that the wind gave them a measure of privacy. “It’s all right. I’m here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he told her, his hands stroking through her hair and up the icy flesh of her arms as he tried to warm her with his touch, tried to project a sense of absolute confidence that he wished he could feel. He’d pictured a dozen harrowing scenarios. But not this. “I’ve got a way to protect you, honey.”

His name sighed out of her once more, drawing his attention to her mouth. It looked so soft, so vulnerable, so exposed that he had to kiss her. Seeing his intent, she stiffened and made a startled exclamation. Afraid she was going to push him away, he tried to hold on to her with his gaze. This was the moment of greatest danger, the moment she could give away the whole shooting match.

“Marci, no.”

She stared up into his eyes, hers so large and questioning that he could have gotten lost in their blue depths. Perhaps he was as dazed as she, because something strange happened. He knew where he was—on the parade ground, surrounded by uniformed soldiers. But the men and their surroundings had faded into the background so that he was conscious only of Marci. He sought something vital from her as his lips moved against her. At the same time he felt his own vulnerability rise to the surface as if he were the one in need of aid and comfort.

In that instant everything changed. The stiffness left her spine, and she went soft and pliant in his arms. In reaction, his emotions changed from protective to hungry. He drank in her sweetness even as she swayed against him, clinging to him like a lost kitten trying to grasp something solid. But he was as lost as she.

Later he realized that it all must have happened in mere seconds. On the field it felt as if they had stepped out of time into a private space of their own. As they clung together, nothing existed for him besides Marissa and the contact of his mouth against hers. His body against hers. The urgent movement of her hands up and down his back.

Her lips opened under his, and he took advantage of the surrender. He tasted passion, heard a low murmur in her throat that made the blood in his veins run hot.

Then in the space of a heartbeat he sensed her change, as he felt her remember who she was and who he was and that there was a reason—whatever it was—that she had never allowed him this close before.

He longed to bring her back to him. Longed to use every lover’s trick he’d ever learned to recapture her heady response, but he realized with a start that they weren’t alone and that a harsh voice had intruded into their reality.

The voice rose above the wind. “Arrest this man.”

Jed’s attention snapped instantly back to the here and now. Marissa went taut in his arms.

Soldiers with guns moved into position around them, cutting off any avenue of escape. But then, Jed had never thought this rescue was going to be easy. Ignoring the troops, he turned and focused on the man who had given the order.

Miguel Sanchez had the grace to look astonished. “Jed?”

“Sé, mi amigo.”

Some of the squad had recognized him, and he heard his name whispered in the circle of startled faces as he shifted Marissa to his side.

“What is the meaning of this?” El Jefe demanded. “What are you doing here interfering in my private business?”

“I apologize for arriving unannounced. But I can’t allow you to execute an innocent woman. Particularly when she’s my fiancée.”

“Your what?” Sanchez bellowed, any pretense of calm vanishing.

Marissa’s reaction was no less violent. Her body jerked in Jed’s arms. Raising her head, she searched his face, her eyes wide and startled. And so tantalizingly beautiful that he was almost undone. But he managed to remember why he was here and why it was so important to hang on to his wits.

“My fiancée. The woman I’m going to marry.” He repeated the words very slowly and very evenly, and not only for Sanchez’s benefit. Marissa needed time to take in the information.

“That’s impossible. She’s a spy!” the general growled. “She escaped into the jungle, and my men had to recapture her.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Do you know who sent her?”

“Nobody sent her. There’s obviously been some kind of mistake,” Jed countered. He’d been acting on pure instinct when he’d driven headlong in front of the troops. Now he looked at the stake that had been waiting for Marissa and was unable to keep from shuddering. “This is no place for a civilized discussion. Why don’t we go back to the hacienda and talk about it before we all get drenched.”