by Anne Stuart
He couldn’t have known. The moonlight wasn’t enough to illuminate the room, and the tears that spilled silently down her cheeks didn’t touch him. But suddenly the kiss softened, the hands gentled on her, the lips coaxed and teased and healed. And without any more thought she was kissing him back, reaching for him with her mouth while her hands were held back, seeking him out with her tongue, calling him to her in the only way she could. And suddenly it was magic again, like nothing had been since a hot August night fourteen years ago.
And yet the magic was different. An older, more mature feeling was sweeping over her, one that held the depth and promise of eternity. This wasn’t a childhood crush fondly remembered, this wasn’t a nostalgic trip back to adolescence. This was real and now and overwhelming. There was only the rough cotton sheet between his naked body and hers. Her shirt had come up to her waist in her sleep, and she could feel him, hot and hard and wanting against her. And she accepted that wanting, as she accepted her own, with a sudden sense of destiny.
But destiny and Jake Murphy had different plans. A moment later she was released, and he fell back on his side of the bed, not touching her, his breath coming heavily in the silent darkness. They lay there without a word, and Maddy could feel her pulse racing through her body, feel the tight constriction of her nipples against the soft cotton shirt. And she waited.
A low, mocking laugh came from the man beside her. “You aren’t going to seduce me into believing you either,” he drawled.
“Me seduce you?” she cried in a soft shriek. “You rotten, miserable—”
“Watch it,” he warned. “You should remember how I stopped your mouth a few minutes ago.”
She shut her mouth abruptly, and he laughed again, a slightly strained sound. “That’s right. Go to sleep. Your virtue is safe with me.” And the bed creaked as he rolled over and away from her.
She stared at his turned back balefully for a moment. In the moonlit darkness she could see the smooth curve of his shoulder, the long brown hair dark against the whiteness of the small, lumpy pillow. He was close enough that she could reach out and bite him or reach out and kiss that smooth, tanned skin.
She lay very still. Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she’d make him sorry. With that wistful thought she fell asleep. Leaving Jake Murphy to lie there, hollow-eyed, into the dawn.
CHAPTER NINE
He was up long before she awoke, moving silently around the shabby little room, staring out into the early-morning sunlight. It was still cool and damp, with none of the blazing humidity that would assault them later in the day. Jake leaned against the open window, barefoot, bare-chested, the khakis riding low on his narrow hips, as he stared unseeing at the garden beneath him.
He knew he was simply putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later he was going to have to face Sam Lambert, sooner or later he was going to have to let the woman sleeping in his bed go free. Events were crowding in on him, people and problems that could no longer be resolved were sweeping over the small fortress, and soon—today, tomorrow, or next week—it was all going to blow up in his face. And he was so damned tired of fighting.
He knew the moment she woke up. He could feel those warm brown eyes on his back, the eyes that yesterday had been uncharacteristically green. Colored contact lenses, he mused. He should have guessed. And for the twentieth time he wished things could be different. But he knew they couldn’t. Once more he affixed a bland, uninformative expression on his face as he turned to greet her.
She was staring at him owlishly, the nearsighted eyes vague and surprisingly endearing. “I don’t suppose you feel like finding my glasses?” she said in an admirably caustic tone of voice. She blew it by yawning in the middle of her question like a small child, and the tousled dark curls framed her sleepy face like a halo. She was sitting up, the covers pulled around her like a shawl, and the ropes dangled uselessly from the bedpost.
“I’ll ask Carlos,” he said, moving across the room towards her. “Did you sleep well?” The ridiculously polite question amused him, but he waited patiently for her answer.
“I did. Once I got the ropes untied.”
“I figured you’d settle down once you managed it,” he agreed gravely. “No ill effects from your night?”
“None. And you?” She was matching him, cool for cool, and the thought amused him even more.
“Once Soledad was distracted I slept very well,” he lied, remembering the damnably disturbing feel and scent of the body that slept so soundly next to his. On an impulse he sat down on the bed next to her, catching her wrists in his larger hands. He watched her eyes skitter across his chest with an absurdly virginal shyness, her gaze coming to rest somewhere in the vicinity of his chin.
There were red marks on her wrists from the ropes, and he let out a soft curse as his thumbs gently rubbed the abrasions. There was no way he could or would apologize, but the touch of his hands on hers was a soothing repentance.
“Are you going to behave yourself today?” Stupid question, he told himself. She’d already proved that she wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of what she wanted.
“I doubt it. When are you going to let me see my father?”
“Still at it? You’ll see El Patrón when and if he’s ready, and not before. In the meantime, I would suggest you be very demure. Neither Enrique or Ramon is too pleased with you.”
“And what about your mistress?” she demanded, pulling her hands away from him.
He smiled blandly. “Which one?”
“My father’s wife, of course,” she snapped back. “I didn’t realize there were any other wives for you to plunder, but then, I haven’t been here long. Ramon’s girlfriend, perhaps? Carlos’s mother?”
His laughter filled the room, suddenly lighthearted. “If you had ever seen Carlos’s mother you would never have such wild imaginings. No, mi amor, there is no one else to attack you but your supposed stepmother. Soledad won’t like the fact that you spent the night in my room, but she won’t do anything about it. If you’d been listening carefully to her wine-induced pleas you would have realized that anything between us is long in the past. Not that I need to explain to you, even if you were Madelyn Lambert.”
“At least you finally admit such a person does exist,” she said shrewdly, and Jake winced.
“I admit she existed.”
“And you called me Maddy when you caught me in the garden last night,” she continued, suddenly remembering.
He shrugged. “I was foolishly intent on saving your life. I didn’t want you to end up with a bullet in your back because I happened to call you Allison.”
She was sitting very still in the narrow bed, watching him out of those huge, cool eyes of hers. “If you’re expecting me to thank you for saving my life you’re wasting your time.”
“I expect nothing of you.” He was being a fool, and he knew it, sitting there on the bed with her and wasting his time trying to get her to smile. He had to get up and away from her as fast as he could.
“Ortega has trained you well,” he murmured, rising, a small distant part of his brain taking note of the way she bristled furiously. “But I’m not about to spend the morning flirting with you. Someone will bring you water and fresh clothes, someone else will bring you breakfast. In the meantime I suggest you sit there and meditate on your sins and what excuse you’re going to give Ortega for failing to accomplish your mission.”
“Go to hell.”
“So you’ve said.” He reached down a hand and gently brushed the tangled curls away from her face. It took her a moment too long to bat his hand away. “Behave yourself.”
It was an endless morning. A sullen, silent but unscathed Ramon brought her a bowl of warm water to wash in and the glasses containing her contact lenses. Her suitcase also appeared, having been thoroughly ransacked by rough hands, but she greeted its arrival with her first feelings of optimism. The sponge bath felt marvelous, despite her fear that Jake might walk in on her at any moment, and t
he rough white cotton dress that was nothing more than an oversized shirt was cool and flattering. She refused to consider why it would matter as she carefully inserted her lenses and stared at her reflection in the grainy mirror above his dresser.
She looked better than last night, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot. Her short-cropped brown hair framed a troubled face, and even her most self-assured expression couldn’t quite banish the fleeting sense of unease that lingered around the edges of her eyes.
All her books were still in the car, along with her doubtless melted candy bars and hot Perrier. Grabbing the first of the pile of books that lay beside Jake’s bed, she climbed back onto the mattress, her long legs stretched out in front of her, wiggling her toes nervously. She was hungry, she was nervous, and she was lonely. Much as she hated the man Jake had become, she wished he hadn’t abandoned her up there in his barren cell. She wished he were there to argue with her, to flirt with her with those cold, merciless eyes of his, to kiss her again. …
That set the seal on it, she thought grimly. There must be insanity in her family. First Samuel Eddison Lambert turns his back on almost limitless money and power to immure himself in a Third World revolution that was bound to kill him sooner or later, and then his idiot daughter starts having erotic fantasies about a man who was treating her worse than any man had ever treated her in her life. Sado-masochism was an ugly word, but she considered it unflinchingly and then rejected it.
It wasn’t when Jake hurt her or threatened her that she got turned on. It was the memory of her adolescence and his sweetly tender charm. It was the hungry demand of his kiss, once he’d gotten past his anger. It was the hint of a look in his eyes, when he thought she wasn’t watching.
Still and all, there was no room for her in Jake’s life, not at this late stage. He’d gone past the last vestiges of civilization. The hacienda was a final outpost, and its leader a half-savage mercenary with little resemblance to the somber-suited Secret Service man who’d filled her childhood fantasies. And the sooner she got away from him, the sooner she’d realize it.
It was only logical she’d be fascinated with him, she reassured herself, ignoring the book that lay opened in her lap. He’d always been someone of mythic proportions, and she was alone, vulnerable, in a country where danger surrounded her on all sides. Never mind the fact that John Thomas Murphy was the greatest threat of all. From the moment she’d seen him again after fourteen long years she’d felt drawn to him, inexorably. And the only way to break that tie was to get out.
Would it be better or worse once he knew who she was? He seemed more than capable of shutting off any trace of human tenderness, concern, or emotion. Their shared history would have little effect on a man of his determination.
She was still staring toward the window that overlooked the garden, a troubled expression on her face, when the thin wooden door opened once again. She didn’t bother to turn, half aware of the picture she must present, sitting on his bed with her long bare legs stretched out in front of her.
“Get up, gringa,” Soledad ordered. “This tray is heavy.”
It said a lot for her sense of isolation, Maddy thought with a trace of humor, that she would even greet the advent of her sullen stepmother with gratitude. She was off the bed in a flash, taking the tray from Soledad’s hands and setting it on the dresser.
“Thank you for bringing me something to eat,” she said with a real attempt at friendliness. “I was starving.”
Soledad sniffed, eyeing the bed with distaste as she moved to appropriate the only chair in the room. “If it was up to me I’d let you starve,” she said sweetly. “We scarcely have enough food to go around as it is. We can’t afford to feed another mouth that shows up, unwanted and unasked.”
Maddy looked down at the chipped plate, the dried-up flour tortilla and the everpresent bean paste, and heaved a resigned sigh. The cup of coffee was black and covered with a thin film of oil, and it smelled more like chickory than coffee beans, but beggars can’t be choosers. She tried the coffee first, swallowing it with a shudder. “I’m sorry to be a burden,” she said, trying again. “Perhaps if you could talk Jake into letting me see El Patrón …”
“No one talks Jake Murphy into anything,” Soledad said. “You’ll see him when Jake wants you to, and not any sooner.”
“But couldn’t you talk to Sam? You’re his wife. Surely he’d listen to you.”
The smile that curved Soledad’s pretty face did little to reassure Maddy. “I, also, see El Patrón when Jake decrees. You fail to understand, gringa. Samuel Lambert is sick. Is probably dying. Even if Murphy wanted to let you see him it would partially depend on Doc and what kind of day Sam is having.”
“And what kind of day is he having?”
Soledad shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in over a week.”
And haven’t missed him a bit, Maddy thought caustically. “So I just have to sit and wait?” She put the coffee down half finished. Even for the sake of the blessed caffeine she couldn’t stomach the foul brew.
“It appears you have no choice. But trust me, gringa, you won’t have long. You may wish you did, but …” She let the sentence trail.
“What do you mean?”
“The government forces are getting closer. The guerrillas are determined to make a stand—Puente del Norte is as far north as they go. Sam Lambert is caught in the middle, an interfering norteamericano who will make a perfect martyr for the cause. When he dies, and I promise you that it will be quite soon, the Patronistas will blame the Gray Shirts, and the Gray Shirts will blame the Patronistas. And the revolution will go on.”
Maddy stared at her in horrified fascination. “You talk about it as if it had no bearing on you. Don’t you care?”
Once more Soledad shrugged her pretty shoulders. “I have long ago learned not to fight against what I can do nothing about. Sam won’t leave, so I’ll have to go without him. Plans are already being made for my escape. I expect to be a very wealthy widow before too many months pass. It will have its compensations.”
Maddy gave up all pretense at friendliness. “You make me sick.”
Soledad’s smile was condescending. “You gringos, all so innocent, so idealistic. If you had lived with poverty, with a war that never ends, with the constant threat of death hanging over your head, you would not be so noble. You would take life’s pleasures as they came to you, and accept the bad with grace.”
“You seem to forget, it’s my father you’re talking about abandoning, my father who’s going to prove the martyr for this crazy country.”
“I do not forget.”
“But you don’t believe me,” Maddy said bitterly. “I forgot this entire place seems determined to think me a liar and a spy.”
“You may be a spy,” Soledad murmured in a languid tone, rising from her chair with boneless grace, “but I do not think you are a liar.”
Maddy held herself very still, scarcely daring to believe her. “Does that mean that you think I really am Sam’s daughter?”
“Of course you are,” Soledad said with a delicate yawn. “I’ve never had any doubt of that at all. But then, I’ve had the advantage of seeing that picture of you when you were a young girl. In a silly pink dress, all long arms and legs, great big eyes and too much hair. You still look just like that awkward girl,” she said. “I recognized you the moment I saw you.”
“Sam has that old picture of me?” she whispered, confusion and delight warring within her. She would never have guessed that Sam Lambert would have cared enough to keep that old photograph of her. Her brother, Stephen, had taken it during the three days he was home that summer so long ago, and it was just as Soledad described it. An innocent young girl that still looked very much like thirty-year-old Maddy Lambert.
Soledad’s black eyes met hers. “Not Sam. Jake.”
“What!”
“You heard me, gringa. It’s Jake who carries your picture in his wallet like a lovesick schoolboy, and always has. Sa
muel isn’t capable of caring for something as ordinary as a daughter. The only way you’ll ever get his attention is by starting a revolution.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Soledad smiled. “Then why don’t you ask the man yourself? He’s standing right behind you.”
“Mi alma.” Jake’s rough voice broke the sudden silence, “you have a very busy mouth. It would give me great pleasure to have it silenced for you some day.”
“Do not threaten me, Jake,” she cooed. “I know you far too well to be frightened by empty threats. It was more than time for the little chick to know the truth. Or at least as much as you deign to tell me.” She sauntered past Maddy’s stunned figure. “Let me know if I can be of further service, gringa,” she murmured.
Slowly Maddy turned to face him. He stood there, cool, withdrawn, unrepentant. “You knew,” she said. “You knew the whole time.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. “The moment I saw you.”
“Then why … ?”
“Why did I lie? I tried to explain it to you, but as usual you weren’t listening,” he snapped. “Sam’s in danger, and his daughter would be in even worse danger. Everyone wants a martyr. A dying old man would be good, his innocent young daughter would be even better. Do you think the American Congress would continue to sanction aid when an American citizen is murdered here?”
“But … I’m safe here.”
“You’re safe nowhere,” he said harshly. “One of the people you had dinner with last night is here to kill Sam. And I have no way of being sure who it is.” He ran a weary hand through the long brown hair, pushing it away from his darkly tanned face. “Until I am sure, no one is safe. Particularly not you, if the killer realizes you really are Sam’s daughter. And he’ll know very soon now.”
“How?”
“Because Soledad will tell everyone she sees. I have no idea why she didn’t say so at first—I have never understood her and never will. But once she decides to open her mouth there’s no stopping her.” Those dark hazel eyes swept over her, an unreadable expression in their depths. “You may as well see Sam. It won’t do any good to put it off any longer.”
