by Anne Stuart
I’m Caterina, she reminded herself, trying to hold on to her fast-fading self-control. “Perhaps,” she said coolly, trying to sound suitably sophisticated. “I’ve never learned to appreciate it.” True enough, she congratulated herself.
“Perhaps I could give you lessons.”
She backed away from him, unable to hide her instant panic. Reilly didn’t miss it—he wasn’t a man who missed much—but he said nothing.
“I don’t think so,” she finally managed to say, pushing her short-cropped hair away from her face. “And I don’t see why we have to share a room. Didn’t the owner say this place was empty right now? Surely I could have my own room?”
Reilly’s smile was cool and fleeting. “Sorry, princess. You’re staying with me. Those weren’t just any ex-soldiers lounging around downstairs, propositioning you. I made sure you couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see you, but I imagine you recognized their leader’s voice.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, no longer caring if he guessed the truth.
“Well, maybe you wouldn’t be that likely to run into your stepfather’s chief executioner. He didn’t run in the same social circles. That was Endor Morales, sweetheart. Quite possibly the most dangerous man in all of San Pablo, and it was just our dumb luck to run smack into him.”
She fought back the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. “Do you think he suspected anything?”
“Morales didn’t get as far as he did by being a trusting soul. He suspects everything and everybody. But as far as Dutchy knows, I’m just a low-life expatriate, probably a drug runner, with no interest in San Pablo politics. Morales won’t be able to get anything else out of him, though I imagine he’ll try. At lest the baby’s out of the way, and we can probably manage to keep him a secret for a few hours. Long enough for a decent night’s sleep and then get the hell out of here.”
“Can’t we leave now?”
“No way. Morales and his men will be watching us like hawks. Any change in our plans would set off alarm bells. We said we were going to spend the night, so we’ll spend the night.”
“But the baby…”
“The baby will be safe enough. The Shumi will keep him out of everybody’s sight, and we’ll be out of here first thing in the morning. For the time being all we can do is sit tight.”
She looked up at him. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. Morales didn’t seem any more than casually interested. As long as you stay close you’ll be safe enough.”
“I’m not sleeping with you, Reilly!”
“Stop sounding like an outraged virgin,” he said wearily. “Your honor, such as it is, is safe with me.”
That was the second time in as many minutes that he’d called her a virgin. If she pushed it, he might begin to realize there was an unexpected truth to his accusation. He’d already turned his back on her, moving to the front of the room to stare out into the streets, dismissing her, and she told herself he wasn’t interested. His kiss had been nothing more than another intimidation tactic.
“Am I allowed to take a shower alone?” she demanded frostily.
“Unless you want me to wash your back?”
She couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was being facetious or not, but she decided not to push it. “When can I see the baby?”
He turned. “Keep away from the kid. He’s as safe as he can be, and having you come waltzing around will just put him in danger. Dutchy’s out of gas, and so is the damned jeep. He’s supposed to get a shipment in the next day or two, so if Morales and his men have gone, it would be worth our while to wait. Otherwise we’ll have to head out on the river. Or by foot.”
“I think I’d prefer to ride,” she said faintly.
“I imagine you would. Don’t hog all the hot water. Assuming there is any,” he added. “I wanted a shave, as well.” He rubbed a hand over his bristly jaw.
“Don’t do it on my account.”
“Honey,” he said wearily, “this is all on your account. If you hadn’t run off from Billy and then decided to come back when things got a little hairy, neither of us would be in this mess. You’d be safe and sound in the States, the baby would have a nanny and you wouldn’t have to be bothered with worrying about the little kid. You’d be out partying.”
“I doubt he’d find a better nanny than the Shumi women,” Carlie said. “And I don’t like parties.”
“Since when?”
She shut her mouth. She wasn’t made for deception. She wasn’t made for hostility, she wasn’t made for men, or kisses. And yet here she was, trapped smack-dab in the middle of it all. Unable, and unwilling, to escape.
“Take your shower, Carlie,” he said, turning back to the window, dismissing her. “I’ll be here when you come out.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
“You’d better believe it. Unless you’d rather take your chances with the soldiers downstairs?”
“What’s the difference?”
He turned to look at her. “If you don’t know, then I’m not going to bother explaining.”
For a moment she didn’t move. He was a big man, tall, lean and strong. The stubble of beard on his chin, the dark amber eyes, the rough contours of his face suggested power and danger. And yet she trusted him. More than she ever thought possible.
The gun was tucked in the waistband of his khakis. It was a big gun that fit his big hands. It would keep her safe. It would keep Timothy safe.
“I know the difference, Reilly,” she said, her soft voice an apology. She grabbed her knapsack and shut the door behind her, heading in search of the bathroom.
But behind her she heard the slow, savage curse of a man pushed to his limits. And she wondered why.
Chapter Seven
There was no question about it—she was making him crazy. There was no escape, either—with Dutchy prowling around, his piggy eyes suspicious, alert for ways to make an easy buck, he had to keep up pretenses. Not to mention that small band of Mendino’s Black Shirts downstairs, complete with Butcher Morales watching over them. It wouldn’t take much for them to come after Carlie, even without knowing who she was. She was female, she was pretty and he was the only thing that was stopping them. If they decided they could take him, it would be her death warrant. And it wouldn’t be a pleasant way to die.
He glanced over at the bed. It barely qualified as a double, and that concave middle would roll their bodies together despite their best efforts. Maybe he should just say the hell with it, give in to temptation and have her.
Despite her maidenly airs, he knew perfectly well he could. Hector Mendino’s daughter was notoriously easy, and she needed him. Add to that the look in the back of her eyes when she glanced his way, when she thought he wouldn’t notice. She wanted him, all right. It was neither conceit nor imagination that told him so. It was his instinct, honed over time, that hadn’t failed him yet.
He sank onto the bed, the springs screaming in protest beneath his big frame. At least the place looked relatively clean, and the sheets smelled like sunlight. He wondered what it would be like to sleep beside Carlie’s shower-fresh body, on sheets that smelled of sunlight.
The notion was dangerous. He could always spread his bedroll on the floor, though the scarred wood promised to be a lot harder than the packed jungle earth. He’d found Billy’s wife in a convent—it would be suitably penitential for him to sleep on the floor.
The very notion of Our Lady of Repose still unnerved him. He’d always made an effort not to fall into that mind trap so many men, particularly those who’d been raised Catholic as he had, were prey to. Some thought women fell into two groups, whores or Madonnas. But in reality, life was never that orderly or convenient.
He liked women, he truly did. He liked their looks and their bodies, the foreign way their minds worked, the crazy way their emotions worked. He liked their laughter and their tears, their husky little cries, their feel and their scent and their taste.
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But for so long there’d been no room in his life for anything more than the briefest of relationships that he’d almost forgotten how much he did like them.
And now was a hell of a time to be remembering. Trapped with a small, slight yet tough young woman who’d made his best friend’s life a living hell. A woman who couldn’t be further from what he wanted or needed. A woman he seemed to want and need anyway.
He heard a noise out on the street, and he wandered over to the window. Morales and his men were making a great show of leaving, something that failed to reassure him. He expected they wouldn’t be going far.
There was no sign of Dutchy sending them on their way, another oddity. A man like the old innkeeper would be more likely to send his powerful customers off with admonitions to stop in again. If Dutchy wasn’t downstairs, then he was somewhere else.
Reilly could move very fast, very quietly, even in heavy boots. He could hear the sound of the shower from the end of the darkened hall, hear Carlie humming beneath her breath. He paused for a moment, alone in the darkness, picturing her. What would she look like beneath the shower? The water sluicing down over those small, firm breasts of hers, breasts that had never nursed a baby. Her belly would still be soft from the pregnancy, her waist still thickened. The kid was less than a month old—it was amazing she’d had so much stamina. His sisters had been in a state of exhaustion when his nieces and nephews had been a month old, and they’d had all the benefits of modern life. Besides not having to trek through a jungle.
For a moment the thought of his older sister Mary, she of the placid disposition and the taste for sloth, being on a forced march through the rain forests of San Pablo brought a rare smile to his face. One that vanished when he heard a tiny knocking noise from the bedroom next to the shower.
The door was ajar. He pushed it open silently, and his night-trained eyes focused on Dutchy, his fat face pressed up against the wall, staring avidly through a narrow crack that let in a shaft of light.
The rage that filled him was immediate and overpowering. Dutchy never knew what hit him. One moment he was pressed up against the wall, drooling over the inhabitant of the shower room, in the next he was flat on his back on the floor, with Reilly kneeling over him, his big hand wrapped around Dutchy’s wattled throat.
“Get a good eyeful, Dutchy?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “I could make you very sorry you decided to play Peeping Tom with my woman.”
“Hey,” Dutchy gasped, “I didn’t mean no harm. I was just looking, is all. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen a white woman around here? A look doesn’t do any harm, and I didn’t figure you for a possessive guy.”
“You figured wrong. I’m very possessive,” he said, increasing the pressure just slightly. Enough so that Dutchy’s tiny eyes began to bug out even more, and he clawed at Reilly’s arms uselessly. “Mess with me or my woman again, and you’ll get more than a warning.”
He released him and rose. Dutchy immediately curled up into a fetal ball, gasping and choking, cursing as he fought to regain his breath. A moment later he managed to stagger to his feet, stumbling out of the room, falling against the doorframe as he went.
The sound of the shower was still going. Carlie probably hadn’t heard a thing. For that matter, Dutchy probably hadn’t seen a thing. He’d been waiting for Carlie to finish, so he could watch her as she dried off.
He stood very still for a moment, in the darkened room. He could still feel Dutchy’s neck beneath his hands, still feel the burning contempt that had washed over him, combined with an irrational, possessive rage. There was no reason for him to feel possessive. She wasn’t his, and she never would be.
He needed to walk out of that room and slam the door behind him. But the crack in the wall let a narrow sliver of light into the room, and it called to him, with a siren lure.
He could think of any number of reasonable excuses. He needed to know just how much Dutchy had seen, so he could decide whether to poke his eyes out or not. He needed to look and see how strong she really appeared to be, whether she could withstand the rigors of the remainder of the journey. He needed to look and make sure she hadn’t collapsed in the shower, oblivious to the scuffle in the other room.
He needed to look and remind himself that she wasn’t the kind of woman he desired, that he didn’t like small, trim bodies. He liked statuesque blondes, built along generous lines. He and Billy had been alike in that, though Reilly had always preferred his women to come equipped with brains, as well.
He needed to look and see what Billy had fallen in love with.
Damn it, he just needed to look.
There was no shower curtain. The shower was a rusted-out metal stall with a drain at the bottom, and Carlie stood beneath the stream of water, face upturned, oblivious to everything but the pleasure of the water sluicing down over her.
She was small, just as Reilly had suspected. Small, firm breasts, narrow waist, flat tummy. Smooth, creamy skin, beaded with water.
He backed away, furious with himself. Furious with the adolescent surge of desire that threatened to knock him to his knees. He was no better than Dutchy, a horny old man drooling over a naked woman.
He’d seen enough naked women in his thirty-six years to take one in stride. She wasn’t the skinniest, the curviest, the shortest, the tallest, the ugliest, the prettiest. So why was he having this inexplicable reaction to her?
Jungle fever. Not enough food, not enough sleep. Hell, he needed a drink. Pushing away from the wall, he headed into the hallway in search of that very thing. Only to run smack-dab into Carlie, wrapped in an enveloping towel, hair and eyelashes spiky damp with water.
He looked down at her, keeping his expression cool and distant while he took into account that this towel was much thicker than the one he’d first seen her in. He couldn’t see the shape of her breasts beneath it. But then, he didn’t need to. He could remember quite vividly how they’d looked, taut with water streaming down around them.
“I take it you like prancing around in towels,” he drawled. “Billy never told me that about you.”
Even in the dimly lit hallway he could see her flush. “I didn’t bring any clean clothes with me,” she said. “What were you doing in that room?” She glanced over at the empty bedroom.
“Catching a Peeping Tom. Our friend Dutchy was watching you take a shower.”
She clutched the towel even tighter around her slender body. It would be easy enough to take her hands, move them away and pull the towel off her. He could pull her into his arms, wrap her legs around his waist and carry her back to the room. And he had no doubt that Caterina Morrissey would let him.
“What did you do to him?”
“Let’s say he won’t be making that mistake again for a long time,” Reilly drawled.
“What about you? Did you look?”
He gave her his best, most cynical smile. “What do you think, princess?”
“I think you’re a pig,” she said fiercely.
“Now that sounds more like the Caterina Mendino I’ve heard about,” he drawled. “Did you save me any hot water like I asked?”
“No.”
“Just as well. I think I’m needing a cold shower about now.” And he sauntered past her, with just the right amount of swagger.
CARLIE WANTED TO KILL HIM. A white-hot surge of anger whipped through her veins, and she shook with the effort to control it. She didn’t like anger. She wasn’t used to strong emotions, love or hatred, desire or spite. She’d been in his company for less than forty-eight hours, and already she’d been through a lifetime of emotions. And each time she felt something fierce and implacable, it was harder to draw her hard-won serenity back around her.
She slammed the bedroom door behind her and pulled on clean clothes. It was marginally cooler that night, and the oversize white T-shirt disguised her lack of a bra. The loose cotton skirt hung low on her hips, brushing her ankles, but she took comfort in the feel of cloth against her leg
s. She wanted to be back in the safety of her cell, in the safety of her habit. This world was strange and unsettling.
Reilly was strange and unsettling. But he was the only safety she had left in her life, at least for now. She could make it through the next few days, long enough for him to get the baby safely out of the country, on his way to his grandparents. And then she would tell him the truth, make her way down to Rio de Janeiro with the sure knowledge that she’d been tested, most thoroughly, and risen above temptation. Surely Reverend Mother Ignacia could no longer deny that she had a calling, that she was ready to take her vows.
She moved to the window, running a hand through her short, damp hair. It was dark and quiet out there, only the occasional bark of a stray dog, the call of a jungle bird, piercing the humid night. She leaned her head against the wall, staring.
She missed Timothy. His quiet little sounds, the warmth of his small body against her. She knew with complete conviction that he was well taken care of. Yet she couldn’t ignore the small, empty ache in her heart.
It would be worse, of course, when they got out of the country. Reilly would take him away, up north, to the big, soulless cities of the United States, and she would most likely never see him again. He would have grandparents to love him, and he would never even know about Sister Mary Charles, so important a part of his life for such a short, sweet time.
She heard the door open behind her. “You ready for dinner?” Reilly asked casually.
She made the mistake of turning to look at him. In the dim light of the oil lamp she could see him far too clearly. He was wearing a towel, and nothing more, and she had no illusions he’d done it purposely. Though there was no reason that he’d think a woman like Caterina Morrissey de Mendino would be discomfited by the sight of a man dressed in nothing but a towel.
But Sister Mary Charles was. She stood there, momentarily transfixed, staring at him.
His long black hair was wet, pushed away from his angular face, and he’d cut himself shaving. She’d known he was a big man, but without clothes he seemed even more massive. Not that his shoulders were immense, or his muscles bulky. He was lean and wiry and powerful looking, like no other man she’d ever seen. Dangerous and beautiful, he was like a jaguar she’d once glimpsed beyond the walls of the convent. Sleek and hard and mesmerizing. And she wanted to touch him.
