Expecting the Boss’s Baby by Christine Rimmer

plane, no search party…”
    She slowly shook her head. “By now, it’s safe to assume they have been looking. By now, my father knows. He will have mobilized and when my father mobilizes, things get done. But no sign of anyone looking for us so far. I found the flares from that large, wonderful, lifesaving box of equipment of yours and I haven’t had a chance to use one yet.”
    Five days, he thought. And how much longer would they have to last here? Were they going to die here? He said, “It’s a big jungle.”
    â€œBut you gave me the coordinates, remember? We know approximately where we are. Eventually, we can try and walk out of here if we have to.”
    He said what he was thinking. “But we shouldn’t have to. We should be wrapping up our ‘great escape’ in San Cristóbal de las Casas about now. And we would be, except for the fact that I’m a fatheaded ass who had to show off his pretty little plane.”
    â€œStop that,” she said sharply. “Don’t you even go there, Dax Girard. This plane was perfectly safe. The weather was the problem.”
    â€œBut if I had only listened to you—”
    â€œIf, if, if. Please. You want to talk if? Fine. What about if I hadn’t proposed this trip in the first place, what if you hadn’t liked the idea? And we can always go in the other direction. What if you weren’t an excellent pilot? What if you hadn’t had the foresight to install that box full of necessary equipment in the back? What if you hadn’t put together a first aid kit that has everything but an operating table inside? We cannot afford to get all up into the ‘if’ game, Dax. We need to keep ourchins up and our minds focused on what needs doing next.”
    He stared up at her. “Wow,” he said.
    â€œWow, what?” She glared down at him.
    He didn’t even try to hide the admiration he knew had to be written all over his face. “I don’t think I realized until now just how tough you are.”
    â€œI have seven bossy brothers and a pigheaded dad. You’re damn right I’m tough.”
    His stomach chose that moment to growl. He put his hand on it. “I think I’m starving.”
    Her sudden grin was like the sun coming up. “And that is a very good sign.”
    Â 
    The next day, which was Saturday, she helped him get up on his feet and out of the plane for the first time since they’d left Nuevo Laredo almost a week before. Every muscle, every bone, every inch of his skin—all of it ached. He was weak as a newborn baby. And he was filthy. He could smell himself and the smell was not a good one.
    But his ankle was healing faster than even he could have hoped. He could put weight on it, gingerly, could hobble around if he took his time and was careful. Zoe had a camp set up, with the two collapsible camp chairs from the box in the baggage area, the tent and the few cooking utensils. And a campfire ringed by rocks she had gathered, with a large, jagged piece of the wing nearby. It took him a moment to understand the purpose of the piece of wing.
    Then it came to him. When it rained, she could use it to shield the fire a little, to keep at least some of the coals dry. The wood she’d collected waited under another hunk of the ruined plane.
    She had water heating for him.
    He shaved. In the small mirror from his travel kit, his face looked haggard, pale and drawn. Beneath the fresh dressing she’d put on his head wound, his eyes stared back at him, sunken and haunted.
    â€œI look like hell,” he told her.
    She poked at the fire and nodded. “Yes, you do. Hurry up. I have a surprise.”
    He wished for the impossible. “A shower would be nice.”
    â€œClose. You’ll see. Finish your shave.”
    Something close to a shower. That, he wanted. He wanted it bad and he wanted it now. He shaved faster, nicking himself twice and hardly