Free Fatal Pursuit (The Aegis Series) by Elisabeth Naughton Page A

he recognized.
    Confused, Jake inched forward, careful not to make any sound, just in case. Ten yards away he realized Marley was the only one in the area. And their camp now looked nothing like it had when he’d left.
    She’d laid the tarp on the ground between two giant roots. A fire sizzled ten feet away in a circle of rocks. Two Y-shaped sticks were stuck into the ground on each side of the fire, supporting another stick skewered through some kind of meat. On a piece of bark off to the right of the fire, a pile of purple berries sat untouched along with a cluster of bananas.
    Reaching around the fire, Marley gripped the ends of the roughly made rotisserie and turned the meat. She winced when the flame got too close to her fingers, pulled her hand back, and sucked on her knuckle.
    “What the heck is this?”
    She turned at the sound of his voice and looked up as he stepped through the trees. “You’re back. I was starting to wonder if I’d have to go look for you.”
    Jake dragged the fronds into camp, dropping them near the fire. “Who did all this?”
    “I did.”
    He glanced from the fire to the berries and back again. “No, seriously. Is someone else here?”
    She pushed to her feet. “No one but me.” Stepping toward the tarp she’d laid out, she said, “The iguana needs a little longer to cook. In the meantime, we can get started on the shelter. It’s getting more humid. I have a feeling rain’s going to hit tonight.”
    “Iguana.” Jake eyed the meat sizzling over the fire. “You’re trying to tell me you caught an iguana.”
    “A green iguana. Fast little bugger.” She picked up a wide-leafed frond, one that was easily three times bigger than the fronds he’d cut, with no gaps or holes. “I thought these might be good for the roof. What do you think?”
    Jake glanced down at the spindly fronds at his feet.
    “Oh,” she said, following his gaze. “Yours are nice too. If you’d rather use yours, we can.”
    He looked up at her, widening his eyes in utter disbelief. Who was this chick? All this time, MacGyver had been sitting out in the other office?
    A slow, gloating smile spread across her lips. One that warmed his belly in a way he didn’t expect. “I told you I wasn’t an invalid, Jake. My father dragged me all over the globe as a kid. I know a thing or two about survival in the wild. I also know how to take care of myself.”
    That was becomingly painfully obvious. Hidden survival skills, hijacking abilities, a mystery brother, and a not-so-dead boyfriend. The woman in front of him was turning out to be nothing like the one who’d quietly worked for him all these years. As Jake glanced around the camp she’d set up without a bit of his help, he couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets were hiding behind those pretty blue eyes.
    And just what the hell kind of trouble that meant was waiting for him down the line.

M arley turned her head in the darkness to look toward Jake, but all she could see was the outline of his shadow. “You really should let me look at those cuts on your hands.”
    “My hands are fine,” he muttered next to her.
    She smiled up at the roof of the shelter they’d built with her banana leaves. Mr. Moody was back. And this time she knew he was pouting because she’d surprised the heck out of him by setting up camp, catching and cooking dinner, and not being the needy and whiny female he expected her to be.
    She really wanted to say, I told you I could be an asset on an op, not a liability, but held her tongue. She’d made her point. Rubbing it in now would just be overly satisfying.
    She folded her hands over her belly, sighing as she listened to the bats and howler monkeys in the canopy above. After they’d finished eating, they’d laid Jake’s palm fronds as bedding under the tarp. They were currently lying next to each other in the shelter, both of them quiet and lost in thought.
    “Why the heck didn’t I know Mason Addison has a son who was a