Buch lesen: «Proposition: Marriage»

One

Repentance came too late. Jane was up to her neck in lake water and trouble.

The lake was a shallow one. The trouble waited about ten feet away, in the form of a pair of combat boots planted right at her eye level on the muddy bank. Jane crouched behind a bush that clung to life in spite of its recent inundation, and wished very hard for the impossible.

She wished she’d never heard of the small-Caribbean nation of San Tomás. She wished even more that she hadn’t bought the cruise tickets a fellow teacher had been forced to sell when his wife’s appendix ruptured just before spring break. Most of all, she wished she’d never given in to the rare spirit of adventure that had moved her to leave the port city where the cruise ship was docked, and go haring off to investigate the island’s interior.

Why, oh why, had she decided to toss aside the cautious habits of a lifetime and live a little?

The boots belonged to a soldier. The soldier had one friend nearby, whom she couldn’t see through her bush, and others spread out in the surrounding tropical forest. All were looking for her, and they had guns—big, mean-looking, Rambo-type guns.

The water was warm, the air was still and hot, but Jane shivered.

Until she’d heard the gunshots, she had been enjoying herself tremendously. She’d made several friends on the bus, including a native couple who had told her proudly about the dam the government had built nearby. Jane was sure she was more profoundly grateful for that dam than anyone else could be. Especially for the newness of it. That dam had created the shallow lake where she crouched. Its waters had swallowed part of the forest and killed off the ground-hugging plants, but it hadn’t finished drowning the trees and larger bushes. Jane’s bush still had plenty of leaves to hide behind.

Though she couldn’t see the soldiers’ faces now, she’d seen them in the village before she’d fled. They had all looked terribly young to her—no older than most of the boys she taught back home in Atherton. She’d noticed the dozen-or-so youthful soldiers with wicked-looking rifles slung over bony shoulders as soon as she’d climbed off the bus, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Not really. Soldiers were a common sight in San Tomás.

Everything had happened so fast. When the bus driver had announced they had to stop for repairs; she hadn’t minded because she’d needed to find a ladies’ room. Seconds after she went into a local cantina, a boy she had met on the bus had come running in. He’d tried to warn her, but she hadn’t believed him—not until she’d been washing her hands in the tiny rest room, and had heard gunfire.

She’d crawled out the narrow window and had run for her life. The dirt path she’d stumbled across had led her straight to this lake, and her bush.

“Hernández is a fool,” one of the soldiers said in Spanish. “Do you see a woman? Of course not, because she isn’t here. Why would anyone head this way, right into the lake? Even a silly norteamericana would not be such a fool. But even if we find her, what good will it do us? Will any of that ransom he talks about find its way into our pockets?”

The other soldier chuckled and made a crude comment about what Hernández could do with his orders. The first young man laughed.

Whom had they been shooting at, back at the village? Jane tried not to think about that. It made her shiver, and she didn’t want to move, not even a breath. But it was hard, very hard, to be still.

There was a bug on her hand. It had climbed on when she’d gripped one limb of the bush—another move that she repented too late, because now she didn’t dare move her hand to release the bush. They might hear.

The bug was a huge, horrid monster of an insect as long as her little finger. It sat on her hand and stared at her, its carapace shining greenish-black in the sun, and it had too many legs. That was how bugs were. They had all those squirmy little legs. Jane purely hated being touched by squirmy little bug-legs.

Jane stared at the bug while she listened to the obscene joke the first soldier told, and to the second soldier’s laughter. Her other hand—the bugless one—gripped a tiny locket that hung on a chain around her neck. The two young men argued about where each of them would search for her.

Then they talked about what they would do if they found her.

When she heard one of them leaving, she waited for the tight band of terror around her chest to ease. It didn’t.

They’d just been talking tough to impress each other, she told herself. In spite of the guns, they were just kids—kids the same age as the ones she taught Spanish to, back at Atherton High, for heaven’s sake. They’d been talking about things they didn’t understand. Surely they couldn’t understand the reality of what they had said they would do to her.

Fear nearly choked her. The edge of the little disk she wore around her neck dug into the pads of her fingers, nearly cutting the skin. Papa, she thought, why did you always tell me I was like you? I’m not. I’m not cut out for adventures.

She wondered what had happened to the other foreigners who’d been on the bus. Please, God, she prayed, let them be all right. That German couple had been so nice, and so had the other passengers—like the quietly gorgeous man with the wire-rimmed glasses who had sat in the bench seat across from her. Jane couldn’t stand to think that the gunfire she’d heard had been directed at him. She’d talked with many of the others on the bus, but hadn’t gotten up the nerve to speak to him.

Normally, Jane made friends easily. That was one advantage to being unremarkable. She might secretly long for one outstanding trait, good or bad, but people did relax with her because she was so very average. New acquaintances often said she reminded them of someone—a niece, a friend from school, the daughter of a neighbor.

But something about the man she’d mentally dubbed “the professor” had made her uncharacteristically uncertain. Maybe it was the East Coast look of him, with those trendy glasses and baggy chinos, that had intimidated her. He’d seemed rather reserved, but she’d decided he was probably shy.

And his hands... For some reason, his hands had fascinated her. He’d had big hands, curiously graceful, with long, elegant fingers, yet she’d seen a number of small nicks and scrapes such as a workingman collects. She’d been downright silly about his hands, in fact, letting them feature in a mildly sexual fantasy. It had been perfectly safe to fantasize, of course. He hadn’t noticed her. Men seldom did.

What had happened to him? she wondered now. If the guerrillas were looking for hostages to ransom, surely they wouldn’t have hurt any of the foreigners on the bus.

Ten feet from her bush, the army boots moved.

The bug decided to move, too, tickling her hand with its squirmy feet Jane grimaced. It was hard to hold still with a monster bug strolling around on her arm.

She couldn’t see what Army Boots was doing, not through the shrubbery, but her ears told her he hadn’t gone far. She heard the scritch of a match being struck and smelled sulfur. For one panicked moment she thought he was going to burn her bush down, then the scent of tobacco smoke drifted her way, making her feel foolish. He’d stopped to light a cigarette, of course, not to commit arson upon her hiding place. He stood there smoking it about fifteen feet from where she crouched, sodden and scared.

The bug paused, waved its fuzzy antennae at her, and rounded the bend of her elbow.

So far, this was shaping up to be one hell of a vacation.

Cinnamon trees mingled with kapok, yellow cedar, mahoe and boxwood in the tropical forest. Some of the trees would die over the next year, their roots or trunks rotted away by the new lake. The big mango tree sitting several feet back from the northern edge of the water would probably survive.

The man perched in that tree had a lot in common with it. Few of the locals realized that mangoes weren’t native to the island. Mango trees had been around long enough and had adapted readily enough that it didn’t occur to anyone that they didn’t belong. Like the tree, the man was a survivor. Like it, he was good at fitting into places where he didn’t belong. He rested comfortably in a vee formed by the trunk and a thick branch, and watched the woman and the soldiers.

The newly-formed lake was, for him, a mixed blessing. The woman had found a place to hide, which was good. But water covered the dirt track he’d planned to take to his pickup spot on the other side of the island. Not so good.

The situation had changed. He had some decisions to make.

The mango tree did a better job of hiding him than the woman’s bush did for her. He could keep track of the ragged soldado from Ruiz’s so-called Liberation Army who stood smoking a cigarette some twenty feet to the west. He also had a decent view of the woman in the lake. Her pale sundress floated out around her in the muddy water, making her easy to spot.

She looked pretty pathetic. Even her hair was dispirited—a dark, dripping cap plastered to her head.

But he’d seen her hair when it was dry. Dry, it held fire hidden in its depths, a richness that only showed when sunlight struck sparks off it. On the bus, he’d watched her. His life sometimes depended on how well he observed those around him, so he’d taken note of all the passengers, including the cheerful American tourist who had chatted with the others in surprisingly good Spanish.

Maybe he had rested his eyes on her more than was strictly necessary. She was so very American, so blessedly ordinary. It had soothed him to look at her. Of course, her hair wasn’t ordinary at all, though it pretended to be. Such a warm brown it was, and thick enough to make a man’s hands itch to touch it.

He shook his head. Silly woman. She was clutching her bush as if it made her invisible. Couldn’t she tell that as soon as the soldier moved east along the shore of the little lake he’d be able to see her?

Probably not. Few people saw the world accurately, and she was a civilian. Her only experience of hiding had probably ended when she and her friends had stopped waiting to hear “Ally, ally, outs in free,” and had started playing kissing games.

The thought of playing kissing games with the woman snagged his attention for one surprising second. He remembered the way she’d laughed on the bus. She’d been talking to that boy, the one he’d bribed to warn her of the guerrillas’ plans She had a warm laugh, as warm and inviting as her hair.

He’d thought of kissing her then—when she’d laughed.

The soldado threw down his cigarette butt and shouldered his rifle. He started moving east.

The woman didn’t move. She stayed put—poor, foolish creature, huddled up to her armpits in lake water, hiding behind her bush. He doubted she could see the man who was looking for her. She didn’t realize the guerrilla would be in a position to see her soon.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. What he’d learned about the ties being formed between two terrorist groups would affect the lives of a great many more women than this one. If she were caught—no, when she was caught, he amended, because she obviously would be—she shouldn’t suffer too much. Ruiz was after ransom, and the self-styled generalissimo wasn’t a vicious man; he would have no need or intention of harming his hostages. The woman might have a rough couple of weeks, but she should be okay. Ruiz didn’t want to look like a barbarian in the press. He just wanted money.

Only...Ruiz wasn’t a real general. He wasn’t even a real soldier, though he wore a fancy uniform and quoted Che Guevara. His control over his troops was poor, and, while some of his soldiers were as decent as men in their positions could be, others gave beasts a bad name.

If the woman were raped, he thought, she wouldn’t laugh that warm laugh anymore. Not for a very long time.

Maybe not ever.

It had nothing to do with him, he reminded himself; nothing to do with his purpose for being here. He’d seen that she received a warning. He’d even lingered after sending that warning, hoping to see that she’d gotten safely away. There was nothing more he could do without risking himself inexcusably.

He told himself these things, but his hands were already moving to find the grips he needed to climb out on a limb for a wet, frightened woman.

The bug was three inches past Jane’s elbow when she heard a thud—a sudden, solid thud, as if something heavy had fallen on the nearby shore.

She jumped. Her arm moved, the branch jerked, the leaves rustled and the bug fell into the water.

There was a grunt and a dull smack. A hitting sort of smack. After seven years as a teacher and twenty-nine years as a sister to two quarrelsome brothers, she knew that sound. She swallowed the whimper trying to climb out of her throat and crab-walked backward, sure she had to get away. Her wet dress clung to her legs, hampering her movement.

She paused, still crouched low. Now she couldn’t hear anything. Even the birds were quiet. That stupid bug was swimming toward her, and she had no idea where the soldier was, what was going on, or what she should do. Jane was used to being sensible, but common sense wasn’t much help in such an utterly uncommon situation. So she stayed where she was, frozen by indecision, straining to hear.

What was that? Behind her—

Before she could turn, a hand clamped over her mouth. Panic sent her heartbeat into triple time. She tried to bite the hand, but long fingers dug into her cheeks and she couldn’t get her mouth open. The hand jerked her head back. She took a deep, panicked breath through her nose and inhaled her attacker’s scent just as his other arm wrapped around her. He forced her off-balance so that she knelt, water lapping at her breasts, with her upper body bent awkwardly back. The hand on her mouth kept her head tilted, exposing her neck.

She thought about necks and knives. Nausea mixed with the panicked drumming of her heart.

A voice spoke in her ear in tiny puffs of air, softer than a whisper. “The soldier with the cigarette is unconscious, but there’s another one in the trees to the west He’ll hear us if we make any noise. Are you going to scream if I take my hand off your mouth?”

He spoke English. American English. Relief made he limp, and she managed to shake her head in spite of the bruta grip of his hand.

At last that hand left her mouth, though his arm stayed wrapped around her. She held her breath, trying to reassun him with her silence that she had the sense to be very, very quiet.

When he let go, she nearly toppled over backward. His hand on her shoulder steadied her. Taking care not to splash she stood, turned—and almost forgot the need for silence.

His glasses were gone. Everything else was the same—the loose white shirt, baggy chinos, and straight brown hai pulled back in a ponytail—but the glasses were gone, and with them had gone the man who’d worn them. It was the eyes, she thought. Those cold, blue-as-heaven eyes meeting hers didn’t belong to a shy professor. No. The man standing in front of her now, his pants wet from the thighs down, was something else; something so far outside her experience, she couldn’t put a label on him. She stood, mute and shaken staring at the stranger in front of her.

He held a finger to his lips in the age-old gesture for quiet and she realized his hands were the same. The same long fingers and palms, the same calluses and small nicks. Even though the man was different, the hands were the same. I was absurdly reassuring.

She nodded her understanding.

He turned.

She started to follow, but paused, looking down at the water that came up to her thighs now that she was on he feet. The bug was still swimming valiantly, but it was con fused. It was going in circles. She hesitated, but for only a second. The stupid thing was going to drown itself.

Quickly she scooped up the horrid creature, using the hand it had already touched. Ugh. Bug legs. Her face scrunched up in disgust, she dumped the glistening monster-bug onto the relative safety of her bush, and turned.

The man who was not a professor had stopped five feet away. He stared at her, an odd expression on his face. He probably wanted to ask if she was nuts. That was what Doug used to ask her whenever she did something he thought was dumb, which had happened rather often in the last couple of months of their ill-fated engagement.

She shrugged apologetically and tried a smile. It hurt her cheek.

He didn’t smile back. He turned and started for the shore—the western shore, which made no sense to her. He’d said there was another soldier in those woods, so why was he going that way?

Because she had no idea what else to do, she followed him.

Jane felt as frightened and confused as the bug must have been when it swam in circles, looking for land. She wanted to cry. On the one hand, she wanted the boyish professor back. An odd pang of loss assailed her over a man who had never existed. Yet she had to admit that the person she’d thought existed behind those gold-framed glasses wouldn’t have known what to do in this situation. This man, with his cold blue eyes and elegant hands, apparently did.

They reached the drowning trees first, then the muddy shore. He gestured at her, indicating he wanted her to hide behind one of the larger trees and wait.

She shook her head. The safety he offered was precarious, but at least he knew what to do. Jane hated not knowing what to do even more than she hated bugs. So she smiled and refused silently, but the smile made her face hurt where his long fingers had dug into her flesh.

She had actually fantasized about those hands. Her face heated when she remembered that. To her dismay, the rest of her body heated, too.

He moved quickly, startling a gasp out of her, stopping so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body all up and down her own wet, too-aware flesh. One strand of his hair had come loose from his ponytail, and it tickled her neck when he bent his head. “I have to take out the other soldado ,” he whispered so softly she scarcely heard him, even with his lips brushing her ear. His breath was as gentle and warm as his words were cold. “I’d rather not kill him. It will be easier to avoid that if you aren’t trotting along behind me.”

She swallowed, nodded, and went to wait behind the tree he’d indicated. And she tried to convince herself that her goose bumps came from fear, or from being wet. From anything except the remembered thrill of his lips brushing her ear.