by Sandra Field
“This trip is more like a prolonged singles weekend than an ornithological field trip! I’m going to have a drink, I’ll see you at dinner.” And Rowan made good her escape.
But as she walked toward the dining room to check on their dinner reservation, she was thinking hard. There was no give with Natalie and Steve; each of them wanted the other to make the first move and was prepared to wait—and suffer—until that happened. Brant and I aren’t like that, not anymore, thought Rowan with a tinge of smugness. We’re meeting each other halfway. How else can we repair all the damage that our marriage caused? We haven’t got the time for games.
After dinner, served late and with a bewildering array of courses, Brant escorted Rowan back to her room. In the shadow of some hibiscus shrubs he kissed her good night with evident restraint. Rowan, who wanted more, pulled his head down and ran her tongue along his upper lip. He then kissed her until their combined heartbeats sounded like a tattoo and her inability to stand had nothing to do with the scrapes on her knees. She gasped, “I shouldn’t have done that, Brant...encouraged you like that, I meal...I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know how I can be around you for the rest of the week and not make love to you,” he groaned, nuzzling her throat, his hands sliding down her bare arms to clasp her waist.
“We’ve got to talk first,” she said frantically. What a hypocrite she was, when all she wanted to do was tear the clothes from his body and make love to him the night through.
Just as well it was still the wrong time of the month. Or she’d be in deep trouble.
“Tomorrow evening,” he grated. “We’ll go for a walk along the beach away from the rest of them and try and figure out where we’re going from here.”
Which gave her exactly twenty-four hours to work out what she had to say. How to tell him what had happened that dreadful day she got the news he’d been abducted.
It didn’t sound like nearly long enough.
The next morning Brant watched Rowan locate three of the rare white-breasted thrashers in the scrub forest on Presqu’ile de la Caravelle; he had to commend her patience, strategy and persistence. Unfortunately she also located a disheartening number of the mongoose that preyed on the thrashers. They then drove to a rain forest trail for the oriole. Brant wasn’t feeling nearly as relaxed today. Despite the lack of sex, yesterday had been like a honeymoon. But today he had to convince Rowan to come back to him; and once again, his much-vaunted intelligence seemed to have deserted him. The fact that he craved her body wouldn’t do him any good. The thought of starting a family panicked him. And she hated his job. None of this did much for his confidence that he could undo the damage of their divorce.
As the group picnicked under some tall pines, he fed most of his lunch to a stray cat, who then curled up in the grass and went to sleep; he envied its ability to be so unconcerned about the future. Rowan, he noticed, had a tendency to avoid his gaze. Unless he was very much mistaken, she was in as much of a funk as he was. This didn’t comfort him in the slightest.
He was sure of only one thing. He wanted her back.
After lunch they stopped along the shore a few times to check out mangrove swamps. At the last stop Brant wandered away from the rest of them, and was rewarded by the sight of a plumed night heron fishing in the brackish waters of the swamp. He watched it for a long time, its single-minded concentration on the matter of food somehow encouraging him that if he only wanted Rowan enough, everything would turn out for the best. He had to trust himself, he thought. Himself, and her.
The alternative, that they would remain forever alienated, was insupportable.
Rowan had seen Brant disappear down the shore; she would have liked to do the same, because under her surface efficiency and good manners she was a mass of jangled nerves. In less than five hours her whole future would be decided, and she still had no idea what she was going to say.
She knew what she wanted: the same man and a different marriage.
In the swamp they found two kinds of egrets and a handsome green heron, and she was about to lead the birders back to the van when Natalie said, “Just a sec. I haven’t gotten a photo of a cattle egret sitting on a cow yet—there’s a field full of neat white cows just beyond those trees.”
She took off at a fast clip. The wind from the sea was hot, the humidity stifling, and even May and Peg looked a little wilted. Rowan said, “I’ll follow her, I guess...I’d still love to find a little egret.”
“We’ll all go,” Peg said stoutly.
“Karen’s tired,” Sheldon said, “we’ll stay here.”
“If Brant comes back, tell him where we are,” Rowan said, and headed after Natalie, Steve right behind her.
The grass was crisp and brown underfoot. As they left the mangroves behind, to her left Rowan heard the plaintive lowing of a cow. Then, splitting the still air like the swish of a machete, Natalie screamed.
For an instant Rowan was frozen in her tracks, the sun beating on her bare arms. Steve said, “What the hell—” and started to run through the last of the trees, brushing aside branches and leaping over roots.
Rowan dropped the scope, hauled off her heavy haversack and asked May to watch them. Then she took off after him, racing across the dusty ground, ignoring the pain in her knees as that terrified scream echoed in her ears. She reached the barbed-wire fence around the field in time to see Steve clamber over it and a flock of cattle egrets take to the air at the far end of the field where a herd of cows grazed peacefully; and then she saw why Natalie had screamed.
Her camera around her neck, Natalie was edging backward from a very large cream-colored bull, talking to it in a high-pitched voice that at any other time might have been funny. The bull looked more interested in her than aggressive; but bulls, in Rowan’s opinion, were not the most trustworthy of creatures.
Steve said in a loud voice, “Nat, as soon as I distract it, head for the fence.” Then he started jumping up and down, yelling obscenities at the top of his voice.
The bull swung its massive head around, pawing at the ground with one large hoof. Natalie looked back over her shoulder, her cheeks as white as the feathers of any egret, and speeded up her retreat. The bull took one step after her, and she whimpered with fear. Then Steve picked up a rock and fired it at the bull. As the rock bounced off its flank, it snorted and turned its full attention to Steve.
Natalie was only a few feet from the fence. Rowan parted the strands, saying urgently, “This way, Natalie, not much further.”
With another hunted look over her shoulder, Natalie stumbled toward the fence and scrambled through it; when two wire spikes caught in her shirt, she gave an exclamation of sheer panic. “Hold still,” Rowan ordered, and carefully pulled the sharp wire from the cotton fabric. “There, you’re okay now,” she said.
Natalie grabbed her, burying her face in Rowan’s shoulder; she was quivering all over. “How was I to know it was a bull?” she stuttered. “I was b-brought up in Boston.”
Rowan patted her soothingly on the shoulder, decided lessons on basic anatomy could wait for another time, and with a flare of fear saw that the bull was advancing on Steve. She shouted, “Steve, Natalie’s safe...get back here. Fast!”
Natalie’s head reared up. “Steve?” she croaked. “Omigod, Steve—”
As she lunged for the fence, Rowan held on to her with all her strength. “He’ll be fine,” she cried, “you can’t go back m there,” and saw Steve begin to run toward the fence.
The bull started after him, breaking into a graceless canter. From behind her Rowan heard the pound of steps through the grass, and as though it were happening in slow motion watched Brant shuck off his haversack, dump it on the ground and vault the fence in a single agile flow of movement. He stooped and flung a sharp-edged rock at the bull.
The bull bellowed in surprise and wheeled to this new threat. Brant tore at the buttons on his shirt and hauled it from his back, waving it provocatively to one side of his body. He was, Rowan saw with
a sick lurch of her heart, laughing.
Steve had reached the barbed-wire fence. He shoved himself through it and stumbled over to Rowan, his eyes only on Natalie. “Are you okay, Nat?” he demanded.
Natalie threw herself from Rowan’s arms into Steve’s, grabbing on to him as though she’d never let go. “That was so brave of you,” she wailed. “Oh, Steve, I do love you.”
“I love you, too,” Steve muttered. “Sorry I’ve been such a jerk.”
“Not half as dumb as I’ve been,” Natalie said with a beatific smile, wriggled her hips against his and kissed him very thoroughly.
Rowan tore her eyes away. The bull was charging Brant.
Her breath was stuck in her throat and every muscle was paralyzed with terror. The whole world had narrowed to a man and an animal. A man who meant more to her than all the world. Like a woman turned to stone she waited for the inevitable and unequal collision; for Brant to be broken like a doll, crushed and gored in front of her eyes.
Brant shook the shirt so it billowed in the sea breeze and at the very last moment threw himself sideways. The sleeve caught in the bull’s horns and ripped free, the sound shockingly loud through the thud of its hooves and the crunch of dirt. The bull tossed its head, infuriated by the scrap of fabric that blocked its vision, and swerved to charge again.
Brant had taken those few precious seconds to get closer to the fence. But not close enough, Rowan saw with an ugly lurch of her heart. Then, in a surge of rage that momentarily dispelled fear and that horrified her with its primitive force, she saw that he was still laughing, his teeth gleaming in his tanned face, his chest slick with sweat.
He was enjoying himself.
It was what had driven them apart, this deep need of his for danger, this hunger to live on the edge. She’d never been able to compete with it. Never.
In a reckless and mocking parody of a bullfighter, Brant swirled the shirt through the air and pivoted to one side. The bull tried to snag the shirt on its horns, but mysteriously the shirt was somewhere else. The bull gave another deep bellow, its great hooves churning up the dust as it, like Brant, pivoted.
It’s a dance, thought Rowan dizzily. A dance with danger. A dance with death. That’s what drives Brant.
I can’t stand to go through this again.
Her fists were bunched at her sides, her nails digging into her scraped palms; dimly she was aware that her knees were bleeding from her frantic run to get to the field. Once more the bull charged, and this time Brant, in a split-second move that was perfectly judged, wrapped his shirt over the wickedly pointed horns, temporarily blinding the animal.
Brant seized his chance, racing for the fence and again vaulting over it with a lithe grace. Snorting ferociously, the bull scraped its horns in the dirt, reducing the shirt to a tangle of shredded fabric.
It could have been Brant, Rowan thought, and wondered if she was going to be sick.
She couldn’t be. Not in front of everyone.
Steve and Natalie disentangled themselves long enough for Natalie to gush, “That was wonderful, Brant,” and for Steve to say, “Yeah...thanks, man—you got me out of a tight spot.”
“You’re welcome,” Brant panted, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
He felt great, all his senses alert, his whole body alive with the rush of adrenaline. Then he looked over at the red-haired woman standing stock-still by the fence. Her cheeks were ashen-pale and there was something in her face that instantly banished his euphoria. He took two quick strides toward her, grabbing her by the elbow. “Rowan, you okay?”
She couldn’t tell him what she was feeling. Not now, not in front of Natalie, Steve, Peg and May; for the two elderly women had by now arrived on the scene. With a monumental effort Rowan swallowed a turmoil of emotion that would consume her should she give it voice, and said stonily, “I’m fine. Shall we go back to the van? Thanks for looking after the scope, Peg—and my haversack, May.”
“Brant, we thought you were going to be killed,” Peg exclaimed.
“Right in front of us,” May shuddered.
“Not a chance,” Brant said with a cheerfulness that grated on Rowan’s nerves. “Here, Peg, let me carry the scope.”
“You were very brave,” Peg said. “Wasn’t he, Rowan?”
“Very,” Rowan said in the same stony voice, and pulled her elbow free as Peg passed Brant the scope.
After one look at Rowan’s face, May tucked her arm in her sister’s and urged her in the direction of the van; Steve and Natalie were already heading that way, their arms around each other. Brant fell into step beside Rowan. He said noncommittally, “What was Steve doing in a field with a bull?”
“Rescuing Natalie who was taking a photo of an egret and didn’t seem to realize that the cow it was sitting on was a bull.”
“What’s up, Rowan?” he went on with menacing softness. “You look like you’re going to explode.”
She glared into his brilliant blue irises. “It’ll keep,” she snapped. “Until tonight. Seeing as how I’d like to hold on to my job, it wouldn’t be smart of me to stage a screaming match in front of my clients. Plus I prefer to keep my private life private. Weird of me, but there you are.”
He didn’t think it was the time to tell her that May, Peg and Steve all knew that he and Rowan had been married. She’d cut his throat from ear to ear by the look of her. “Well, at least Nat and Steve seem to have mended their differences,” he said.
“Hurray for them.”
“Bully for them,” he grinned, raising one brow.
“Cute,” she seethed. “Real cute. Put on a T-shirt or you’ll get sunburn.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, my darling Rowan.”
“Don’t call me darling!”
“Why did I ever think the Caribbean would be dull?” Brant drawled, putting down the scope and his haversack on the grass and pulling out a T-shirt.
As he raised his arms to pull it over his head, Rowan dragged her eyes away from his lean rib cage, where sun and shadow played over sinew and bone. The van was in sight now, the driver patiently sitting in the shade waiting for them. Karen and Sheldon were cuddled together on the beach, as close as the two halves of a shell, while Natalie and Steve were in a Hollywood clinch against a tree. She’d like to chuck the whole bunch of them, scope and all, into the sea and drive off without them, Rowan thought vengefully.
She couldn’t do that. She needed her salary. She called out, “Let’s head back to the hotel, I’m sure everyone’s ready for a swim and a cool drink after that bit of excitement.”
Bit of excitement? Who was she kidding? Death knell to her hopes for a different marriage was more like it.
The wind stirred her hair as they left the beach and drove down the road past a field of sugarcanes; and belatedly Rowan realized why she’d been trying so hard to hold on to her rage.
Because beneath it lay despair. Brant hadn’t changed. Couldn’t change. So tonight she’d be defeated before she even opened her mouth.
CHAPTER NINE
AT NINE that night Brant crossed the quadrangle toward Rowan’s room. He had on his best blue shirt and new cotton trousers, and he’d showered, shaved and brushed his hair: just as though he were an adolescent on his first date. But he didn’t feel like an adolescent. He felt like a grown man on a hazardous assignment, who could be walking into an ambush over ground sown with land mines.
And his life depended on how he handled this particular assignment.
He raised his fist and tapped on the door of her room. Rowan opened it immediately, as if she’d been waiting on the other side. She was wearing the same sundress she’d worn for dinner, with a lacy shawl thrown over her shoulders, and she looked like a woman standing in front of a firing squad. Unsmilingly she said, “Where are we going?”
Like a good strategist, he’d already scouted out the territory. “There are some rocks at the far end of the beach beyond the pier, why don’t we sit there?”
> Side by side they walked down the path. Brant could think of nothing to say; just like a goddamned adolescent, he thought in exasperation. “How are your knees?” he asked.
“No sign of infection. Thanks,” she added as an afterthought.
“Good.” He racked his brains. “We go to Dominica tomorrow?”
“Yes. It’s my favorite of all the islands, it’s not developed very much and the birds are wonderful. We do a boat trip there, too, that’s always fun.”
He asked a couple of questions, she answered them and by then they’d reached the beach. It was deserted; music from the disco drifted over the water, while the moon had shrunk a little, its pale light shimmering on the waves. Brant took Rowan’s elbow as they started over the sand. She flinched from his touch, and his nerves tightened another notch. “This isn’t a seduction scene,” he said.
“I never thought it was.”
Her voice was a cold as the moonlight. They walked past the stone jetty to the rocks that lay beyond it, where the dark fronds of a palm grove rustled to themselves. Rowan turned to face him, thrusting her hands in the pockets of her dress. Like an adversary, Brant thought. Not like a woman intent on reconciliation.
Instantly she went on the attack, her words fallimg over themselves. “You had to do that this afternoon, didn’t you? Play with that bull as though it were a stuffed teddy bear and not an animal that could have killed you.”
“I was never in any real danger.”
“If you’d tripped and fallen, it would have gored you the way it ripped your shirt to pieces.” Her voice was shaking. “You haven’t changed. You can’t, you don’t know how.”
“What did you want me to do? Leave Steve in the field to be gored instead?”
“You enjoyed it!”
“So what?”
Rowan jammed her fists still deeper in her pockets, pulling her dress tight over her breasts, and said raggedly, “I love you and I want to live with you again, but—”
