Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  Key sat down and leaned against the interior wall. He guided Lara down beside him. “Where are the others?” she asked in a whisper. “He’s sending back only two to guard us?”

  “Seems so.”

  The truck’s noisy engine was coaxed to life. With a screech of gears, it moved forward. Through the opening in the back, they watched the camp roll past. When they last saw Emilio Sánchez Perón, the dreaded El Corazón del Diablo, he was seated on the porch of his ramshackle hut, consulting with his lieutenants while being fanned by adoring young girls.

  “He’s so damn smug,” Lara angrily observed. “He thinks we no longer pose a threat to him.”

  Key cupped her chin and brought her head around. “Do we?”

  She considered the question, then slowly shook her head as tears began to slide down her cheeks. “No. Even if I’d been able to kill him, his death wouldn’t have brought back Father Geraldo, or Dr. Soto, or Randall, or Ashley.”

  He whisked a tear off her cheek. “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Then what would be the point? I’d be a killer, no better than he.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to say anything about what we found last night. I’m sorry, Lara.”

  She nodded her thanks, but hadn’t the strength to say more. Within moments, she succumbed to exhaustion. Her eyes closed, and her head fell back against the wall of the truck. Almost immediately she was breathing evenly, having found release in sleep.

  One of their guards approached with blindfolds. “Bug off, Bozo,” Key said to him. “We’re going to sleep. Our eyes will be closed.”

  The guerrilla consulted his comrade. The other shrugged indifferently. The blindfolds were withdrawn and the soldier returned to sit near the tailgate with his counterpart. They lit cigarettes.

  Despite his aching ribs, Key slipped his arm around Lara so her head wouldn’t bump against the truck. He positioned her against his side. She turned and settled her head on his shoulder.

  One of the soldiers made a crude comment about the instinctive way she nestled the cleft of her thighs against his hip. The two laughed, flashing Key lewd grins.

  He gave them the finger before surrendering to his own exhaustion.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At sunset they arrived at the hotel. It once had been a showcase, but, like everything else in Ciudad Central, it had suffered the effects of war. Lara had attended diplomatic receptions and parties held in its ballrooms in bygone days. Now the staff was inadequate and unfriendly, acting more like surly soldiers obeying orders than like hosts.

  After spending hours in the back of the bouncing truck, Lara was so relieved to have reached her destination that the hotel’s notable lack of amenities didn’t bother her. The formality of registering was waived. She and Key were promptly escorted under armed guard to the third floor.

  The hallways were deserted. There was only silence behind the numbered doors. Lara guessed that this floor was reserved for “special guests,” and that it could rightfully be called a detention center. Essentially, anyone given a room on the third floor was under house arrest.

  “Señora Porter.” The bellman handed Lara a room key. He gave Key another. “I trust your stay with us will be comfortable.” Under the circumstances, his hospitality was a parody. Nevertheless, he bowed to them, then he and the two guards retreated to the elevator. Only the bellman got in. The guards posted themselves outside the sliding doors. There were also soldiers at the emergency exit doors at both ends of the corridor.

  Lara unlocked the door to her room. Key followed her inside. The room was clean but tacky. Through an open door she saw the flamingo-pink tiles of the bathroom and a plastic shower curtain with lurid hibiscus blossoms. She dropped her doctor’s bag and duffel at her side and stood in the center of the room, too dispirited to take another step.

  Key was behind her. He touched her gently. Turning, she looked at him, and, for the first time since leaving El Corazón’s camp, she really saw him. He looked battered and beleaguered. She reached up to touch the wound on his temple, then, realizing that the gesture wasn’t professionally motivated, she lowered her hand.

  Softly he said her name. As they stood facing each other, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was hoarse from screaming at Sánchez, whose only reaction to her accusations had been a gloating smile. He’d demonstrated no remorse for Ashley’s death. Remembering, tears came to her eyes. She inclined toward Key and began shaking her head mournfully. “No, no, I’m not all right. My baby is dead, forever lost to me.”

  His arms encircled her and held her protectively. “Shh. Don’t cry. He can’t hurt you anymore. We’re safe.”

  Suddenly she wanted very badly to be convinced of that. Her fingers curled inward, digging hard into the muscles of his chest. She desperately needed to touch, to be touched, and apparently Key was just as eager to allay his own fears.

  He tipped her head up as his descended. Simultaneously a violent hunger was unleashed, and they aggressively sought to satisfy it. He claimed her mouth with a frantic, needful thrust of his tongue.

  Lara arched against him and locked her arms around his neck. He pulled her shirttail from the waistband of her pants and impatiently tore the buttons from their holes. Reaching behind her, he unfastened her bra, then slid his hands forward to cover her breasts. His strong fingers pressed into her flesh.

  His name drifted across her lips—a question, a profession, a prayer.

  Responding, he lowered his head and took her nipple between his lips. Her head fell back upon her shoulders, and she gave herself over entirely to the hot urgency of his caress. He pulled her deeply into his mouth, the flexing of his jaws strong and possessive. Then he kissed her mouth again, moving his head from side to side, changing angles, testing positions, tasting her completely.

  At last he raised his head and looked at her, his eyes feverish and painfully blue. His eyebrows were pulled into a frown of determination above his straight, narrow nose. His lips were a thin, firm line of resolve set between his bearded cheeks.

  Lara wanted him with the purest, most undiluted sexual desire she’d ever experienced. Yet she closed her eyes, shaking her head in denial. “I don’t want to be one of Key Tackett’s women.”

  “Yes, you do. Tonight you do.”

  He carried her to the bed and laid her down against the pillows. He must have known her mind better than she knew it herself, because she reached for him eagerly when he followed her down. His lips tasted salty with sweat and were slightly gritty, but she couldn’t get enough of them.

  He pushed aside her blouse and the cups of her brassiere and moved his hand across her breasts, lightly grinding her nipples beneath his palm until they were stiff and so sensitive that his merest touch caused her back to arch above the bed.

  She did nothing to stop him from unfastening her pants and pushing them down, along with her panties, until they were gathered around her ankles. He undid his trousers, but it was Lara’s hands that shoved them over his buttocks.

  He entered her.

  She received him.

  He was incredibly firm. She was wet and snug. His head sprang up, and he looked down into her flushed face. She could feel the color in her cheeks, hear her own quick, soughing breath. His eyes locked with hers as he pushed deeper. She clamped her lower lip between her teeth to keep from crying out.

  When he was fully seated inside her, he grimaced with pleasure. Then, with a moan, he pressed his forehead against hers. “Oh, Christ. A fantasy fuck.”

  He began to move; she raised her hips to meet his smooth thrusts. Each one took her breath, but she couldn’t deny herself the overwhelming sensations they evoked.

  He waited for her. When she climaxed, he sank all ten fingers into her hair and held her head between his hands, kissing her mouth as thoroughly and intimately as their coupling. Her orgasm was long and strong and more than he could endure. Allowing himself to come, he buried his face in her neck and drew
a patch of her skin against his teeth.

  It was a long time before either of them moved.

  They did move, eventually, from the bed and from her room into his. Their dirty clothes and muddy boots had made a mess of her bed. Defying the curiosity of their guards as they crossed the hall, Key led her into his room, a mirror image of hers except that the tiles in his bathroom were turquoise and the shower curtain was decorated with smiling seahorses.

  They removed their clothing and stepped beneath a shower from which they coaxed only rusty, tepid water. Scanty bars of soap were wrapped in green cellophane. They used up three of them to wash the grime off each other.

  The water cooled but they stayed beneath the spray, exploring. She examined the gash on his temple and told him that she could put a butterfly clamp on it.

  He said, “Don’t bother. I’ll live.”

  She examined his bruised ribs and told him that several were probably cracked.

  He admitted that they hurt but wouldn’t consent to her binding them. “The night we met, you mummified me. Damn bandage nearly drove me crazy. I took it off the next day.”

  She called him hardheaded as she combed her fingers through his chest hair. She cupped his weighty sex in her palms and sipped water from the delta-shaped hollow at the base of his larynx.

  He covered the scar on her shoulder with tender kisses and called it beautiful when she demurred and tried to hide it. “Besides, it’s hardly a scratch compared to mine.”

  With her finger, she followed the raised, red surgical scar that ran up his left leg from knee to groin. “What happened?”

  He told her about the car wreck that had ruined his leg and all hopes for a career in the NFL. “Were you terribly disappointed? Is that what you wanted?”

  “It’s what Jody wanted. We’d never been pals. But after the accident…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about Jody.”

  He touched her everywhere, giving and taking pleasure in equal portions. He was indulgent and sensual, more so than she would ever have believed. She thought that surely she was dreaming, although she had never dreamed this erotically about her husband. And never about Clark.

  They finally left the bathroom and were foraging through their duffel bags for clean clothes when someone knocked on the door. “What do you want?” Key asked brusquely.

  “Tengo la comida para ustedes.”

  Cautiously he eased open the door. A soldier held a room service tray perched on his shoulder. “Gracias.” Key took the tray of food from him and, without giving him time to argue, slammed the door in his face and slid the chain back into the track.

  He set the tray on the table. “I hope it’s better than the fare at Sánchez’s camp.”

  “It could be poisoned.” Lara approached the table, pulling her hairbrush through her wet hair.

  “Could be, but I doubt it. If he wanted to kill us, he wouldn’t be that subtle. He’d have done it when he had an audience.”

  On the tray were an assortment of fruits and cheeses, cold roasted chicken, and bottled water. Key got a drumstick from the platter and without much interest took a bite. “Wonder why he let us go.”

  She began to peel an orange. “Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Damned odd. I don’t know what I expected, but not this.” He used the drumstick to point out their surroundings. “Not exactly The Plaza, but better than a bamboo hut with a dirt floor.”

  He chewed thoughtfully. “Bottom line. Our lives in exchange for my taking his ‘message’ to the States? Nope. Doesn’t jive. Too easy. If he wanted to convey a message to our government, he could have used someone more influential than us, the head of state of an ally nation, for instance.” He tossed aside the chicken bone and opened a bottle of water. “Why didn’t he kill us, Lara?”

  She returned the half-peeled orange to the tray. “I don’t know.” Moving to the windows, she parted the drapes and gazed out over the city.

  “That orange would do you good. You haven’t eaten all day.”

  She glanced back at the table with revulsion. “I don’t want to feel obligated to Emilio Sánchez for anything.”

  “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. You should eat.”

  “I’m really not hungry, Key. My mind isn’t on my stomach.” There was an edge of impatience in her voice, most of it self-directed. “I’ve been trying to sort through things.”

  “What things?”

  “I don’t know. Things. Everything. About what happened here three years ago. Randall. Ashley. If I dwell on that… that mass grave she’s buried in, I’ll probably go mad.” She clutched a handful of drapery. “So I can’t. I must concentrate on my memories of when she was alive. I must remember how bright and happy she was, how much joy she gave me during the short time I had her.”

  Her hoarse voice began to waver. She paused to compose herself. “My daughter is lost to me, but if I focus on her life rather than her death, it doesn’t matter so much where her body is buried. Her spirit is still alive. In that respect, this isn’t a failed mission after all.”

  “You had to return here in order to come to terms with it.”

  She nodded. “Yes. That episode of my life—all of it, beginning with the scandal—has been governing my life for far too long. I accused everyone else of identifying me with tabloid headlines, but I’m the most guilty. I can’t continue regarding myself a victim. It’s time I got on with the rest of my life.”

  “In Eden Pass?”

  “I haven’t had much success there,” she remarked as she turned to face him.

  “Not because you aren’t a good doctor, but because of us Tacketts. We’ve given you a hell of a hard time.”

  Suddenly reluctant to look at him, she averted her head.

  “Key, why did this happen between us?”

  “The animosity? Or the other?”

  “The other.”

  He took a deep breath and held it, saying nothing for several moments. Finally: “You’re the doctor. Got any theories?”

  She did, and indicated so with a slight motion of her shoulders. “People who’ve survived a life-threatening ordeal,” she began slowly, “frequently want sex directly afterward.” He raised one eyebrow, either with inquisitiveness or skepticism. She wasn’t sure. “It makes sense. Sex is the ultimate release of emotion, a means of unequivocally affirming life.

  “I’ve had shamefaced patients confess to me that immediately following a funeral, they made love. With extraordinary passion. Human beings have an innate fear of death. Sex is instant confirmation of survival.

  “After the harrowing experiences we’ve been through the past few days, it follows that we’d expend our pent-up fears and emotions with sex. Fierce, aggressive sex. We’re a classic example of this psychological phenomenon.”

  Key had listened politely. Now he walked to her, coming so close that she had to tilt her head back in order to look into his face. “Bullshit. It happened because we wanted it to.” He kissed her hard and quick, stamping an impression of his lips on hers. “Damned if it needs any more justification than that.”

  The clothes they had so recently put on were discarded as they made their way to the bed. When the backs of his knees touched it, he sat down and guided Lara to stand between his thighs. He lifted her breast to his mouth and flicked the nipple with his tongue.

  Her eyes fluttered closed and choppy little breaths issued from her throat. She wound strands of his hair around her fingers but allowed his head to move freely over her breasts and down the center of her body. His beard rasped her belly, eliciting exciting and forbidden sensations. Between her thighs she began to ache, deliciously. The lips of her sex became swollen and warm.

  Key splayed his hands over her bottom and tilted her middle up against his face. He nuzzled her. He kissed her navel. He kissed the soft skin beneath it. With little puffs of heat, his breath stirred her pubic hair.

  Then he turned her, and she landed on her back on the bed, the juncture of her thig
hs forming a cradle for his lowering head. He kissed her with unapologetic carnality. His mouth gently drew on her while his nimble tongue taught her things about herself she didn’t know. As though inside her head, taking directions from her thoughts, he knew exactly when to probe, when to stroke, when to sink his mouth into her, and when to withdraw and caress her with the very tip of his tongue.

  By the time he rose above her, she was sated, replete, dewy with perspiration, and drunk with passion. Nevertheless, her slack lips awakened beneath his searching kiss. When he entered her, it was a beginning, not a benediction.

  Tenderly he traced the scar on her shoulder with his fingertip. “It was bad, huh?”

  “Very bad. For a while the doctors believed that I’d be extremely lucky to regain only partial use of my arm.”

  “Knowing you, you were determined to prove them wrong.”

  “After the wound healed, I spent months in physical therapy.”

  For a moment he watched her reflectively. “I think you should stop punishing yourself for not dying with the rest of your family, Lara.”

  “Is that what you think I’m about?”

  “To an extent, yes.”

  She came up on an elbow and surveyed his lean, naked body. In addition to the scar on his leg, there were many on his torso. “What about you? You’re reckless. You take senseless chances. What are you punishing yourself for?”

  “It’s not the same thing,” he answered crossly. “I’m a thrillseeker for the sake of the thrill, that’s all.”

  She gave him a look that said she wasn’t buying it. Her eyes wandered from one scar to the next. There was a particularly wicked one cutting a jagged line across his ribs beneath his right arm.

  “Knife fight,” he said when she looked at him with a question in her eyes.

  “Obviously you lost.”

  “Actually I won.”

  As to the fate of the loser, she was afraid to ask. “And this?”