He took a deep breath, touching her hair gently. “I would die before I hurt you.”
She smiled, took his hand, and pressed a kiss to his palm.
“I know that you would never hurt me,” she said. “I know that you never will.”
He was staring into her eyes when something distracted him. Frowning, he looked around her and gritted his teeth.
Now—now when he needed to concentrate on Natal’s problems, and not on his own.
One of the men was back.
There he was. One of the men in the blue suits. This time, it was the hatless bald guy. “We have to go,” he said huskily.
“All right,” she said. She seemed puzzled, concerned.
He looked at her quickly. She didn’t know anything about the men in the blue suits. She didn’t know what he had done. It was in self-defense; she would understand.
But right now, she didn’t know.
“We have to go, now. I’ll explain; I’ll tell you everything,” he assured her. “As soon as we have a moment, I’ll tell you everything.”
“I trust you—whatever it is, I trust you,” she said. “We are running from the police?”
“I’m not sure … I’ll explain later. We’ve got to go.”
“This way!” she said.
Natal was good. She was quick with a smile and her words were soft and polite and charming. She managed to get them into a crowd. And somehow—while it had seemed that there were dozens of people ahead of them to get on the cog train that would take them back down the mountain—they managed to get on the next one, the passengers around them chatting merrily enough. No one seemed to realize that they had pushed their way through to the front.
Then again, it was Carnaval in Rio, a city that prided itself on its joy.
River kept smiling and thanking people and nodding and agreeing when one of the wonders of the city seen from the cog train was pointed out.
Soon enough, they were back at the lower station. Afraid that the men would be behind them again soon, River kept moving with Natal’s hand in his.
“Where should we go?” she murmured.
“Away—no matter what the crowd in the city, we need to go far. Where those who are not part of the farmland and the native population don’t go. I’m afraid … no matter how many people are doing a samba and no matter how many floats or dancers or parades may move through the city, they will see me. We have to go far.”
“Then we must take a bus. And you have a transportation card. I will slip in behind you. We’ll be fine. But we must hurry, lest they realize we are truly escaping. Come on.”
Once again, she knew her way. They took back streets, winding along through alleys and staying off the major boulevards until Natal cried, “Here!”
They caught a bus that River hadn’t taken before.
But she was just letting that bus take them to a different stop, where they hopped another bus. And then another.
And then they were headed out of the city, toward the land reclaimed from the rainforest, where native Brazilians lived and worked, where it was still possible to simply disappear behind the crops, into a rich and fertile landscape with sheltering trees.
He discovered that they were back on the farmland where they had gone the first day they had been together. Where they had enjoyed their picnic—and given the remains to the old couple, along with their blanket.
“No one has followed us,” Natal said, carefully looking around. “No one exited the bus when we did; no one was on the road; we’re safe.”
“I think so,” he agreed.
But would he ever really be safe? And though she had left Tio Amato, could he ask her to run with him for … as long as it took?
Maybe forever?
“Come, it’s time to talk. But we must have something. We’ll buy from the farmers. No one from the city comes here.”
They paused to buy fruit juice from a vendor. When they walked out into the field, River knew that he had to talk to her then.
“Natal, I have to tell you what happened—why I keep running.”
She stood by his side as they stared at the sun setting over the fields and the distant mountains.
She squeezed his hand, not saying anything.
“I stabbed a man,” River said. He was afraid that she would wrench away from him. That she’d seen all the violence she could bear.
He waited for her reaction, barely daring to breathe.
She looked up at him. “If you stabbed him, he needed stabbing.”
Her words were flat and true and trusting. Relief flooded him so fully that he felt his limbs trembling; he had fallen impossibly in love with her. If she had rejected him, he wasn’t sure if he cared what the men in the blue suits wanted.
“I didn’t want to; I tried to leave,” River explained. “But this man—he attacked me with the knife. I got it away from him and told him that I didn’t want trouble. He charged at me like a rhino. I didn’t want to do it.”
She touched his face gently. “I know you; I know what you’re saying is true.”
“I believe the man worked for Tio Amato,” he told her. “I’d seen him before. At the track—with Tio Amato.”
“If he worked for Tio Amato, there is no doubt,” she said, “he most likely deserved to be stabbed.” She let out a breath. “God alone knows what such a man might have done to others in his life.”
“But I’m an American. Ex-military. I’m afraid that the Brazilian police would never see it that way. Especially because I’m almost certain that the man worked for Tio Amato.”
She nodded gravely, studying his face. “So what’s your plan? What do you want to do?”
“To leave,” he said softly. “To take a train.” He paused. He didn’t say exactly where he was going. “North—away from the city. Would you come with me?”
The world seemed to stop then. Every second that passed seemed like an eternity. He felt like a schoolboy, praying that she would agree, knees like rubber, hands shaking.
“Of course,” she said.
He thought that he would collapse, he was so relieved. It was as if his entire body had turned to liquid.
He fought for composure. “Then we need to get back to the city. I will get another train ticket. I was supposed to go last night, but I saw you. I couldn’t leave once I’d seen you. Not without saying goodbye.”
That made her smile. Despite her black eye, her smile made her face even more beautiful. Maybe it was the way her face seemed to light up for him. “Now you don’t have to say goodbye.” She squeezed his hand. “You wish to go tonight?”
He touched her face. “This is love,” he said softly. Natal didn’t contradict him. He couldn’t allow himself the screams and the laughter and the exhilaration he wanted to feel and to act on—any more than he could forget that for this dream to take place, they had to escape. He had to hold on to reality and work for the future.
“I think it’s important that we leave as quickly as possible,” he continued. “Luckily, the city is crazy busy. This is best for now, but we’ll have to go back to get the train out of Rio. Until then, we should lie low.”
“I understand that, and I’ll go with you,” she said. “But I must get a few things.”