Was he going crazy, or was she?
“It’s watching us.” She felt a shudder run up her spine as the boat slid past the huge creature. “Probably trying to figure out if we’d go best with red or white wine.”
Ryder actually chuckled. Softly. Out of concern for the alligator.
“Last time I saw one of those on this creek, I was about ten years old,” he said.
“It’s a wonder you lived to be eleven years old, if you were into playing with alligators.” She still couldn’t quite keep her voice steady.
“It’s a good sign, Jaynie. Means nobody’s been up this way for a while.”
“Nobody who lived to tell about it, anyway.” They were safely past the reptile now, but Jayne’s uneasiness was still escalating. The thought of that armor-plated carnivore blocking their only escape route was not a comforting one.
“And I thought you left home because you hated it here,” she said, not sure she wanted to look ahead of her to whatever new dangers might be lurking in the mud. “I never knew you were such a country boy, Ryder.”
He chuckled again. The sound seemed to come more easily to him this time. It occurred to Jayne that she hadn’t heard him chuckle like that in a very long time.
“I left home because of the people, not the wildlife,” he said. “I used to love it here, except when I had to deal with human beings. I used to know every piece of this property like I knew my own face.”
“And you—remember it now.”
She made it halfway between a statement and a question. Ryder didn’t miss her emphasis.
“I remember some of it.” That was what was behind the light in his eyes, she thought. After floundering in a void with no memory at all, recognizing a familiar landscape must be a huge relief.
“More to the point, I remember that there’s a cabin in the woods a couple of miles behind my grandfather’s house.” The stream seemed to be getting narrower again, but Ryder didn’t slow his pace. “This is the back way in. It’s exactly what we’re after, Jaynie—a place where nobody can find us.”
“What if they come to the house?”
“They’ll find it empty, exactly the way it’s been since my grandfather died.”
His grandfather had died just before Jayne had met him, she recalled. He’d been completely alone in the world, as she had been. It had been one of the strongest bonds between them, in the beginning, until the solitude inside of Ryder had seemed to overwhelm him.
“Won’t they check the cabin?”
“I don’t think another soul on earth knows it’s there, except for me. My grandfather said it used to be slave quarters, but it had pretty much fallen down by the time he inherited the place. He helped me fix it up when I was a kid. It was always—my hiding place.”
His face dimmed for the first time since they’d rounded the comer back on the river. Jayne wanted to ask what he’d been hiding from, but there were more immediate questions crowding at her.
For instance, how was he planning to get the boat past the boggy spot she could see ahead of them? He adjusted the height of the motor and kept them moving forward, speaking as he negotiated the increasingly shallow stream.
“Since we got in by water, there’s no way to track us,” he said. “And we can get out by water whenever we need to. There’s a little town downriver called Narvaez. It used to be big enough that it had a few stores. Somebody there may have a fax service. We can work from there, and stay hidden while we do it.”
She had to admit the plan all hung together.
Except—
“I don’t see any cabin,” she said, peering into the mottled wooded landscape. “Where is it?”
“Just a couple of miles through the bush.”
“A couple of—Ryder, you are crazy! I mean, I like Mother Nature as well as anyone, but—”
“Do you?”
He turned off the engine. His words hung in the sudden silence.
It wasn’t only the challenge in them that startled her.
It was the humor.
She’d almost forgotten Ryder could be this way—strong, sure of himself, poking gentle fun at her with that devastatingly sexy light in his blue eyes.
She swallowed hard, and said, “Well, no, not really. I’m your basic city kid. I guess I always have been.”
He was edging the boat into the mouth of a tiny stream that ran in to meet the one they were on. She could tell he was trying to get the craft as far out of sight as he could, and even though the overhanging trees made her feel she was in one of those leafy nightmares she’d always hated, she moved to help him as he shrouded the boat in branches, blocking it from view.
“Well, city kid,” he said when they were finished, “this’ll be a treat for you. And I don’t want to sound too suggestive, but it might be a good idea if you stick close to me, all right?”
She had no intention of wandering off, but she didn’t get a chance to tell him so. Stepping out of the boat onto the muddy shore, Ryder reached for her hand and pulled her after him. And he kept a firm hold, his fingers surrounding hers with a warmth that was reassuring and disquieting all at the same time, as he led the way along the shore and into what seemed to Jayne to be an uncharted wilderness, pure and simple.
They walked for what felt like a very long time.
“I thought you said two miles,” Jayne muttered as she tried to keep her impractical leather pumps from being sucked off in yet another low spot.
“Miles are longer in the bush.”
“They do that to keep out the tourists, right?”
“Nah. That’s what the gators are for. And the snakes.”
Jayne shivered. “Your memory is coming back. You know I always hated snakes.”
“Actually, I didn’t remember it. I just saw one slide across the path, is what made me think of it.”
The shudder seemed to run all the way up from the backs of her heels this time. She clenched her toes to keep her shoes on and took a couple of quick steps to keep up to Ryder’s longer strides.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this path.” With an effort, she kept her voice from shaking as much as it wanted to. “See, where I come from, the term ‘path’ means that somebody has actually been there before. And sometimes there’s even a place to put your feet, and some other little amenities like that. Whereas this path of yours—”
He ducked his head under a low branch, and Jayne did the same. “Hey, it’s been twenty years. You said so yourself.”
“Then how do you know we’re going the right way?” The thought of getting lost in the wilds of central Florida, wandering around until some passing alligator took pity on them and decided to end their misery, was even less appealing than the knowledge that there were snakes underfoot.
“I just know.”
He sounded as calm as she’d ever heard him. It was ironic, Jayne thought. Ryder’s old self-confidence seemed to be coming back now that they were as far as it was possible to get from any kind of real help.
“The big trees are all the same,” he was saying. “And the streambeds haven’t changed much, either. This country stays pretty constant, year to year. In fact, we should be coming to one more little low spot, and then we’re there.”
Then we’re there was the sweetest thing she’d heard all day.
The “one more little low spot,” however, proved to be a problem.
For one thing, it was more of a small pond than a low spot. For another, it stretched across the “path” into the woods on both sides. She couldn’t see a good way around it. And Ryder seemed to be on the point of striding straight through.
Tugging on his hand, Jayne held back. “Has it got snakes in it?” she demanded.
“Probably not.”
Probably not wasn’t as reassuring as she would have liked. She kept a firm grip on Ryder’s hand and held her ground.
They’d brought the insect repellent with them from the boat, and it had kept most of the flying insects at bay, alt
hough there was still a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around their heads.
Jayne’s heels were blistered from trekking across soggy, uneven ground in shoes that were designed for walking across a city street. Her skirt had caught repeatedly on the bushes that surrounded them, and the fullness of it made walking even more difficult. She was tired, disheveled and not at all certain about heading into the wilderness with a hunted man who—only a couple of days ago—she’d told herself she never wanted to see again.
But she could handle all of that. What was keeping her rooted to the spot was the thought of stepping into that muddy brown water and feeling something slithering up her ankle. She was close to her limit, she realized—or maybe she’d just reached it.
“Ryder.” She could feel impatience in his grip, but she resisted it. “This is—are you sure we’re almost there?”
What she wanted to say was, This is crazy—we have to go back. Her doubts were clear in the sound of her voice, judging by Ryder’s expression when he turned to look at her.
And then his own face changed. He frowned and looked down at her feet, which were half-submerged in the squishy turf they’d paused on.
Ryder’s sneakers were mud-soaked, too. But at least they’d been designed for hiking. He waved his free hand at the cloud of bugs around his head, and said, “You should have said something.”
“Oh, I did.” She pulled her right foot free of the ooze, and felt the left one sinking deeper into it. “I’ve been saying lots of things. I’ve just been keeping them to myself.”
The gleam in his eyes intensified without warning. She couldn’t tell if it was surprise she was seeing, or admiration, or something else. She only knew her pulse started to pick up speed at the sight of it. It had been so long since Ryder had looked at her that way—since she’d seen that flash of spirit in his eyes and felt it speaking directly to her own heart.
She caught her breath as he released her hand and stepped closer to her. Before she’d realized what he was up to, he leaned over and slid one long arm behind her thighs. With the other one, he circled her waist, lifting her out of the bog and against his broad chest.
“Ryder—your ribs—”
She could feel the edge of the elastic bandage where it cut into his torso. Instinctively, she tried to shift away from it, lightening her weight against his rib cage.
But she could feel the strength in him, too. It was as though being back where he belonged had rejuvenated him in some mysterious way. And her attempt to move away only ended up settling her more closely against him.
Her arms went naturally around his neck. She could smell his skin, a subtle, musky smell that suddenly seemed like the scent of sunshine, if such a thing was possible.
She knew it wasn’t. It was all preposterous—the trek through the jungle, the way her heart was suddenly pounding at her collarbone, all of it.
But as she looked into Ryder’s blue eyes from such close range, all she could think of was that lion-gold mane of his, and the way he seemed to have soaked in all the heat and strength of the country they’d been traveling through.
“Believe me, sweetheart, I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been absolutely certain the cabin is only a few more steps.”
That renegade gleam of humor glinted in his eyes again. Jayne caught her breath as he started to walk, splashing through the calf-high puddle as though it wasn’t there.
She tried to think of a snappy remark about scaring off the snakes. But nothing came to mind.
Nothing, that is, except the thought, I’ve missed you, Nick.
It was getting more and more difficult to tell herself this wasn’t the real Nick Ryder. That old, heart-stopping eagerness in Ryder’s face was cutting through all her doubts, through all the hurts of the past few years. The man who was carrying her through the trees with such care and strength was so much like the golden-haired loner she’d fallen in love with, so much like the Nick Ryder who’d once told her they’d been made to love each other and no one else.
Each step he took jostled her a little closer to him. By the time they reached an opening in the trees, Jayne was breathing hard, as though she was the one doing the heavy lifting.
And Ryder’s chest was rising and falling faster, too. She hoped it was only the effort of carrying her that was doing it. If they found themselves drifting into the same dangerous passion that had gotten them into such trouble this morning—
“There.” The rough, hungry edge to Ryder’s voice was distracting enough that it took Jayne a few seconds to realize what he was nodding at. “Home sweet home.”
She turned her head and felt a host of conflicting feelings rising like a wave inside her.
Just as he’d promised, there was a small cabin in the clearing ahead of them. The clearing itself was half-overgrown. But enough light came in from above that she could clearly see the wooden structure, its door and windows boarded over, its roof obviously intact.
Relief was the first thing she felt. They weren’t lost, after all. And Ryder’s memory hadn’t been playing him false. It was like a small, desperately needed beam of light in the midst of what had been nothing but darkness.
But on the heels of her relief came a much more troubling sense that she was coming home, too, not just Ryder. There was something almost familiar about this, something that felt as though they’d been here before.
Realizing what it was didn’t do anything to calm her rapidly beating heart.
It was their honeymoon she was thinking of, and Ryder’s romantic, chivalrous gesture of sweeping her off her feet as they approached the doorway of the apartment they’d shared when they were first married. The feeling of his arms surrounding her now, and the haven of the cabin beckoning them from across the clearing, conjured up all kinds of memories for her.
And for Ryder, too, judging by the look in his eyes. But he seemed challenged by it, not disconcerted, as Jayne was. She could feel herself drawn into the dizzying hunger of his gaze, into that open, searching expression she hadn’t seen for such a long time.
“Welcome home, Jaynie.” His words were low and rough. She hadn’t figured out how to answer them when he lowered his head and kissed her.
The heat of it went straight to her belly and settled there. His mouth parted to meet hers, swirling her instantly into a world of tenderness and passion, of laughter and longing. His lips were familiar and demanding, the scent of his skin an erotic haze that wrapped itself around and around her before she could even think about escaping it.
It was a kiss full of promise, she thought dizzily. As though this was the beginning of something new and wonderful.
She knew it wasn’t. It was the beginning of the end, that was all. Once they found out who was trying so hard to kill Ryder, this would all be over. And she would go back to the real world, where ghosts from their shared past wouldn’t keep appearing out of nowhere to tempt and arouse her.
Ryder was no ghost, that was for certain. His kiss stirred her from head to toe, leaving her shaken and hungry for more.
She knew that more was a bad idea. But it was hard to remember that, especially when Ryder lifted his lips from hers and she felt a little stab of loss deep inside.
Her voice almost didn’t work when she tried it. “This—isn’t real, Ryder,” she said. “The little honeymoon cottage—the hideaway for two—it isn’t what you’re thinking.”
He didn’t bother to deny that he’d seen it exactly in those terms. She’d known that—known precisely what was going through his head when they’d stepped into the clearing.
“Isn’t it?”
His answer wasn’t much more than a growl.
And it wasn’t an answer, anyway. It was just one more unwelcome question, Jayne thought as he lowered her to the ground and stepped away from her side.
She’d been right—his breathing was as deep and unsteady as her own. And his eyes weren’t laughing any longer. They were full of turbulent clouds again.
He held her gaze for
one long, unsettling moment. And then he strode off between the trees toward the cabin that had once been his shelter from the storm.
Chapter 10
“And I realize we’ve missed most of the migrating birds, but this was the only time I could get a whole week off. I work in sales, and the schedules are so unpredictable.”
Jayne dropped a couple of pairs of cheap sunglasses into her shopping cart. They wouldn’t provide much in the way of disguise, but along with the two baseball caps she’d already picked up, they might help to make the two strangers in Narvaez a little less recognizable. “As it is, I’ve still got to be in touch with the office every day about a deal we were right in the middle of when I left,” she added. “You don’t know how glad I am that you have a fax machine and that you’re so close to the river.”
“You’re boating, you said?” The proprietor of Narvaez’s sole grocery store was leaning over a carton of cereal, supposedly putting the boxes onto the shelf ahead of him. It was clear, though, that chatting with Jayne was of far greater interest at the moment.
She and Ryder had anticipated that. New faces in a tiny town like this were bound to attract attention. They’d been careful to construct a cover story before boating into Narvaez on Monday morning.
“You always told me the best liars were the ones who gave enough detail to be plausible, but not so much that they got trapped in their own inventions,” Jayne had told him. “You said most of the criminals you caught were the ones who contradicted their own stories at some point.”
“Guess I couldn’t have been all bad as a cop.” He’d said the words gruffly, but Jayne had caught an echo of discontent in them. Deep down he seemed to be desperate to know he wasn’t on the wrong side in all of this.
“Yes, we’re boating,” she said to the curious store owner now. “We’ve got a houseboat anchored a few miles out” She was careful not to say in which direction. “And we’re just touring around in the motorboat.”
She lifted a couple of gallon jugs of water into the cart. The little cabin, which had seemed like such a haven when they’d finally reached it, had started to feel impossibly primitive by the time they’d wakened this morning.
A Marriage To Remember Page 13
