Leopard 02 - Wild Rain

your brother want to have you killed, Rachael?”
    “You make me tired. It does happen, Rio. Maybe not in your world, but certainly in mine.”
    Rio studied her averted face, trying to see past the mask she wore to what was going on her mind, his brain racing with the possibilities. Had she found his home by accident, or had she been sent to assassinate him? She’d had a couple of opportunities. He’d given her a gun. It was still there, beneath her pillow. Maybe she hadn’t taken care of it because she needed him while her leg was healing.
    He straightened slowly and walked over to the stash of weapons hanging on the wall. He strapped a sheath to his leg and pulled the leg of his pants over it. A second knife was positioned between his shoulder blades. He pulled his shirt on and tucked a gun into his waistband.
    “Are you expecting trouble? I thought you said Kim Pang was your friend.”
    “It’s always better to be prepared. I don’t like surprises.”
    “I noticed,” she answered dryly, prepared to be angry with him over his boorish reaction to her admission. He may as well have slapped her. She had revealed something to him she had never admitted to another soul and he didn’t believe her. She could tell by his immediate withdrawal.
    Rio crouched beside the injured cat, his hands incredibly gentle as he examined the leopard. Her heart nearly turned over in her chest. His head was bent toward Fritz, his expression almost tender as he murmured softly to the cat. She had a sudden vision of him cradling his child, looking down lovingly, his thumb in the baby’s tiny hand. He suddenly lifted his head and looked at her and smiled.
    If it were possible to melt, Rachael was certain she did. His eyebrow arched. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

    “I’m trying to figure out what it is about you,” Rachael answered honestly. His face was no boy’s face.
    His features were tough and hard-edged. His eyes could be ice-cold, frightening even, yet sometimes when she looked at him, Rachael couldn’t breathe with wanting him.
    Rio’s hand stilled on the small leopard. She could shake him with just a simple sentence. It was terrifying to think of the hold she already had on him, especially since he had long ago accepted he would live alone. His life was here, in the rain forest. It was where he belonged, where he understood the rules and lived by them. He studied her face. A mystery woman with a silly made-up name.
    The beast roared and Rio embraced the rising temper. He didn’t want to see the expression on her face, her gaze drifting over his face with a mixture of emotions, feminine and confused, a tenderness he couldn’t afford. “The rules are different here in the rain forest, Rachael. Be very careful.”
    As always she surprised him, her laughter invading his senses and squeezing his heart. “If you’re trying to scare me, Rio, there’s nothing you can do I haven’t already seen. I’m not easily shocked or easily frightened. I knew the day my mother died, back when I was nine years old, that the world wasn’t a safe place and there were bad people in it.” She waved a dismissing hand, princess to the peasant. “Save your scare tactics for Kim Pang, or whoever else you want to impress.”
    Rio gave the small leopard one last pat, reached out casually to scratch Franz’s ears before straightening to his full height, towering over her, filling the room with his extraordinary presence. He looked very uncivilized, completely untamed and at home in the wilds of the forest. When he moved, there was a fluid grace she’d only seen in predatory animals. When he ceased all movement, he was utterly, completely still. It was intimidating, but Rachael would never admit it.
    “You’d be surprised at what I can do.” He said it quietly, and there was a soft, underlying menace to his tone.
    Rachael’s heart skipped a beat, but she kept her expression serene and merely lifted her eyebrow in response, a gesture she’d worked hard to perfect. “You know what I think, Rio? I think you’re the one who’s afraid of me. I think you don’t quite know what to do with me.”
    “I know what I’d like to do.” This time he sounded gruff.
    “What did I say that upset you?”
    Rio stood in front of her feeling like he’d been felled by a huge tree. He had closed that door so long ago, his emotions raw and bruised and bleeding, and he wasn’t about to open the door for her or anyone else. He