Page 17 of Knox's Mission

Covered in mud, the person was unmistakably American. He was taller than the locals, who barely reached five feet. Hair in a ponytail that ran down his back, dressed like an adventurer from one of those popular clothing stores, Knox knew exactly who he’d found.

Donnie.

The man was walking in the opposite direction of their camp, lost. Knox had half a mind to turn back and leave the sonofabitch after what he did to Amy.

Could he?

5

Amy held tight to the mosquito netting, wishing she had some idea of when Knox might return. All kinds of awful scenarios ran through her mind as to where he’d gone. None of which ended in her surviving this hell. Worse yet, seeing him again awakened feelings that had been dead too long. What were the odds her first crush would set the bar for everyone else?

The first time she’d seen him when they’d moved next door to him and his father, something stirred. A knowing? A familiarity? A sense this was the person she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with?

Whatever had happened to her—true love?—the opposite happened to him. He’d wanted nothing to do with her. In fact, most of the time, he hadn’t wanted her in the same room. The mostembarrassing part was how easy her body slipped right back into those feelings she’d had years ago. His? He was here out of…what? Compassion? Obligation?

It would be just like Knox to make a promise to Garrett that he would watch over her. The two had been together, side by side from witness accounts, when her brother had died. Her mother had held off on the celebration of life service until Knox was released from the hospital. But he’d refused her calls. They’d had no choice but to move forward without him.

Why?

Why hadn’t Knox taken her mother’s calls? Why hadn’t he reached out to Amy? Why hadn’t he shown at the remembrance?

A noise to her left caught her attention. She listened to every insect or animal sound, especially monkey calls, trying to pick up on any difference. Now that she knew hunters in local tribes used those sounds as a means of communication, she picked out nuance. The false alarms were racking up, but out here, it was better to be safe than sorry. Sorry meant ending up face down with half a dozen or more holes in her body.

She involuntarily shivered at the mental image. No sign of Knox.

The thick, humid air was like breathing soup, which made her all kinds of claustrophobic.

Lorna was still sleeping, curled up against Amy. If she moved, Lorna might wake.

As much as Amy wanted to punch Donnie should she ever see him again, her heart went out to Lorna. Was she still pissed about being tricked into this trip? Absolutely. Would the trust she had in her friend be lost? You bet. Could it be recovered? That was a question for another day—a day Amy hoped to be alive to decide how to move forward with their friendship, if at all.

It might not be Lorna’s fault Donnie pulled a jerk move, but her friend put Amy in this position in the first place. Though she had held Lorna’s hair back while she threw up at base camp. The sickness had been real. Right?

Now that Knox had questioned everything, Amy’s mind was working overtime to figure out if he might have been right to ask. How else would Lorna have looked so bad?

An obvious answer popped into Amy’s thoughts. Pills. There were pills nowadays for just about anything. Was there one that would make someone sick? It would explain why Donnie hadn’t seemed overly concerned about his girlfriend. Was he in on the rouse? The mastermind behind it?

Maybe it was the friendship bond talking, but Amy didn’t want to believe Lorna could do such a terrible thing to her. They’d been friends for toomany years, since freshman year of college. They’d stayed in touch once Amy dropped out. She’d spent a couple of years traveling around the state, trying to find her path while believing there wasn’t a place she fit.

She’d been a waitress in a diner in Austin, a coordinator at an events company in Dallas, and parleyed her last job into a tour on the rodeo circuit out of Mesquite, where she became crew.

In no job did she ever find herself. Not until she started making films with her camera, realized she was not only good at it but loved doing it, and discovered what she was meant to do with her life.

She’d also learned the hard way that jobs paid the bills. A calling or a career in film, not so much. At least, not in the beginning.

Once she’d figured herself out, she came back home to the Houston suburb and set about figuring out how to make documentary films a paying job, not just a passion project.

Strangely enough, being here in the jungle with her life on the line, she’d never felt more alive. Was it the near-constant reminder life could be taken at any moment? Or, for the second time in a little more than a year, realizing how truly fragile life could be?

Thinking in those terms had her wanting to seize more life while she still could. She was never going to be this young again. Though, at thirty-one, shewasn’t a kid anymore. The ticking clock pull to have a child hadn’t started yet like it had with others her age. Was she broken?

Did she need children?

Amy had never seen herself as a mother. She wasn’t one of those girls who played with dolls, cradling them as she envisioned herself in a wedding dress someday. She wasn’t one of those little girls who’d had dozens of Barbie dolls stacked everywhere. It was probably due to having a tough-as-nails older brother like Garrett, but she’d ridden her bike as transportation and followed him into the woods on adventures.

He would give her hell, but his smile always gave him away. He’d been proud of her. It had meant the world to her.

She credited him with her independent streak, but that might just be a Hunt family trait instead of something he’d instilled in her. Garrett was an encourager, though. And he believed Amy could do anything she set her mind to. Which also made him worry during her lost years, as her mother had dubbed them.

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