“Well, rescue or kidnapping, whatever it was, just sit tight while I shower and I’ll find some dinner when I’m done. Maybe you could catch a nap or something. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
By all rights, she should be, but energy zinged through her veins and she felt as if she could walk out that door and retrace their steps to the other coast without breaking a sweat.
He must have taken her silence for acquiescence. Big mistake. Olivia had no intention of sitting helplessly by.
She waited in the kitchen until he disappeared down the hall. Then she started opening cabinets to ponder her options.
For the last twenty-four hours, Ren had been the one in his element. He knew how to filter water, how to find food, how to hide their tracks. She had been as helpless as a toddler out there.
She would have perished in the jungle without him, would have been bitten by a snake or fallen off a cliff or something.
But in here, she wasn’t helpless. She wasn’t good at much in life, but no matter what her father said, cooking was one of her few talents.
Ren Galvez had saved her life. She had no doubt whatsoever. He had extricated her from Suerte del Mar at great personal risk to himself and then had helped her survive the rigors of the jungle to make it this far. He had showed her things about herself she never would have guessed, such as that she had the strength of will to overcome her terror and climb a tree when she didn’t have any other choice.
She owed him a huge debt, one she could never repay. She could at least take this small burden from his shoulders.
* * *
The small bathroom was still steamy from her shower and smelled of apples and warm, clean female.
He was so damned aroused he couldn’t think straight.
Ren closed the door behind him, trying to block from his mind the memory of how she had looked standing there with her hair damp and her cheeks flushed from the shower.
He was in serious trouble here. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted Olivia Lambert.
If it were purely a physical response to her, he could handle this all much better. But he couldn’t deny the emotional tug between them. He cared about her. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have this tangled knot in his stomach, knowing there could never be anything between them.
They were worlds apart, just about as disparate as two people could ever be.
Money had never been at all important to him. He had grown up poor as dirt, though he hadn’t fully realized it until he was in junior high and discovered kids he went to school with had more clothes than two or three shirts and one decent pair of jeans.
His parents had been happy if they could put food on the table. They were illegal immigrants who did whatever had to be done to feed their four children.
Though his family never had anything extra, he and his brothers and sister had always known they were loved. They had also always known their parents didn’t judge people by how much money they had but how they lived their lives, trite as that sounded.
As a struggling college student and then grad student, Ren had learned to live on very little. He was happy with a small savings account and a healthy retirement portfolio and he had never wanted anything else. He drove an eight-year-old Jeep—if the jungle hadn’t claimed it by now, anyway—and lived in a two-room concrete research station.
What the hell would he ever have to offer the daughter of the man who founded Lambert Pharmaceuticals?
Nothing. Not one damn thing.
He was a scientist consumed by his work. He was lousy at anything else.
He sighed as he whipped his shirt over his head. He knew it with his brain, but his body had plenty of things it wanted to offer her.
He couldn’t help thinking it would have been better for both of them if Manny had been available. By now, she could have been on her way to the U.S. Embassy in San José instead of in the other room offering way too much temptation.
She was attracted to him.
He hadn’t missed the signs there. He wasn’t being egotistical when he acknowledged that he could probably walk back into that kitchen and seduce her in a heartbeat.
She was coming off a bad engagement and was probably vulnerable and needy.
If he were a different kind of man, he wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of that. He had been a long, long time without a woman, and he had never known one who inflamed him like Olivia Lambert.
But he wasn’t a different sort of man. He couldn’t use her like that, just to slake a sudden hunger for soft, curvy blonds.
Better to just clamp down on his need and do his best to forget about how delicious she looked just out of the shower, though he had a feeling keeping those images out of his head was like trying to dam up Rio El Tigre with a handful of pebbles.
He turned on the shower spray and was almost relieved when, as she predicted, there seemed to be no hot water.
The water was cool, not cold—more refreshing than punishing. When he finished ten minutes later, he convinced himself he’d clamped down on most of his hunger for her.
He found a change of clothes of Al’s and was returning his disposable razor to his toiletries bag in the cinch sack when he spied her beach bag at the bottom.
He pulled it out, intending to return it to her, then suddenly remembered her cell phone.
He could call her father.
The thought whispered through his mind and he pushed aside the mosquito netting to sit down on the bed as he considered.
Wallace Lambert would come for her, he didn’t doubt it. She would be safe from Rafferty.
And safe from Ren.
He dug through her bag until he found her phone. He hit the button to turn it on, holding his breath to see if it had juice.
Not a full charge, he saw, but two bars showed up on the power indicator. As he expected, it showed there was coverage here, since Al and Bobbi’s bungalow wasn’t far from the cell tower in Puerto Jiménez.
He stared at the phone, mulling what to do.
He didn’t have another option. Not really.
Before he could reconsider, he scrolled through her address book until he found an entry labeled simply Wallace.
He hit the country code for the U.S. then dialed the number before he could change his mind.
Voice messaging picked up after the first ring, a terse, abrupt male voice—her father—and Ren drew in a deep breath.
“My name is Lorenzo Galvez. I’m a scientist on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Your daughter Olivia is with me. Whatever you’ve heard, I did not, I repeat, did not kidnap Olivia for any nefarious reason. She is completely unharmed and free to go at any time but she is still in danger. It would be best if you could come to get her. We’re in a house outside Port Jiménez.”
He quickly gave the address and directions to Al and Bobbi’s house then hung up, hoping with every fiber of his soul that he hadn’t just made a terrible mistake.
* * *
Olivia listened to the sounds of the shower coming from the bathroom and tried not to picture that strong, lithe body standing soapy and wet under the warm spray.
The kitchen was alive with other noises—the burble of water just coming to a boil on the stove for pasta, the rain cascading outside, the sizzle of sautéing onions.
So why couldn’t she seem to focus on anything but that shower?
It took all her powers of concentration to force her attention back to the vegetables she was chopping.
The kitchen smelled even better than it sounded, the doughy scent of her no-rise breadsticks in the oven melding perfectly with the onions and garlic from her sauce.
She had definitely lucked out in the provisions department. The cupboards had been largely left bare except for stock supplies such as spices by owners who obviously expected to be gone for some time. But out the window she had spied an overgrown vegetable garden, lush with ripe, forgotten produce. Tomatoes, squash, yellow peppers, fresh basil. Everything she could possibly want for a lush
harvest feast.
Someone here loved to cook. She could tell not only by the produce in the garden but by the quality of the knives and the cooking utensils. The kitchen was well laid out, with everything she might need within easy reach.
With only a few moments’ work washing and peeling and slicing, she had all the ingredients for her favorite pasta primavera and cucumber salad.
She added fusilli to the boiling water and checked the breadsticks. Though the kitchen was warm, a moist breeze blew in through the windows and Olivia was in her element, so comfortable here that she even hummed a little in her terribly off-key voice.
“Madre de Dios.”
At the muttered oath, she jerked around from the stove to find Ren standing in the doorway. His dark hair was wet and combed. He must have found a razor somewhere, she saw with some regret, since the sexy, disreputable stubble was gone.
He was wearing borrowed clothing again, a navy blue golf shirt and tan cargo shorts. He looked lean and dark and gorgeous.
She swallowed hard and had to fight all her instincts to keep from pressing a hand to the sudden nerves jumping in her stomach.
“What’s all this?” He advanced into the kitchen area of the open floor plan. “I’m gone for twenty minutes and return to paradise. It smells divine in here.”
She had to agree, except just now she couldn’t smell any of the vegetables, only clean, delicious male.
“What can I do?”
A hundred possibilities flooded her brain, none of which she could share with him. “Um, you could set the table. It will all be ready in about ten minutes.”
“Great. My stomach is already growling.”
He seemed to know where everything was in the kitchen and quickly found plates and silverware and carried them to the dining area of the house. He pulled wineglasses from a cabinet and set them at the table, as well, then returned to the kitchen, leaning a hip against the breakfast bar while he watched her work.
She was never comfortable having an audience observe her messy cooking style and his close scrutiny made her flush. She was painfully aware of the subtle tension seething between them, of the jittery nerves jumping around her stomach and the itch under her skin.
She drained the fusilli and then tossed it with the sauce and vegetables, then sprinkled parmesan she’d found in the refrigerator over the whole thing.
When she pulled the breadsticks from the oven, Ren stared. “How did you throw this all together so quickly?”
She shrugged, flattered by his look of astonishment.
“Luck, more than anything. I stumbled onto the vegetables and herbs in the garden, ripe and fresh as if they were just waiting for us. I made the breadsticks from an old no-rise recipe my grandmother used to make. I’m afraid dessert will be simple, just gingered fruit.”
“Simple. Right.” He shook his head, still looking astounded. “Let’s see if Al and Bobbi have any wine to go with this delicious feast.”
He found the perfect Chianti and poured her a glass, taking water for himself. The rain continued to spatter outside, but here it seemed as if they were wrapped in a cocoon of intimacy she found as seductive as it was wonderful.
He tucked into the food with gratifying eagerness. After the first bite, he closed his eyes with an appreciative moan.
“This is without question the best thing I’ve eaten in months. Maybe even years. When we were talking about our culinary skills back in the rain forest, you forgot to mention you were a genius in the kitchen.”
She laughed, a blush heating her cheeks. “I’m not. Far from it.”
He took another bite of the pasta, then followed it with a breadstick. “You should have a restaurant. I’m serious. You would be famous.”
“That’s the last thing I want. To be famous, I mean. But I did dream of opening a restaurant once.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She sighed and set down her fork, the lettuce suddenly tasting bitter in her mouth. She picked up her wineglass, though she knew even the Chianti wouldn’t wash the taste of her failure away.
She had come so close to doing just that, opening a restaurant, right after she graduated from college. She had even come up with a business plan and hired an agency to scout locations. But she’d abandoned the idea after only a raised eyebrow and a few derogatory comments from her father.
Most restaurants fail in their first year. The Dallas-Fort Worth area had a glut of eateries. Did she really think she knew enough about business to make it a success?
Like water dripping on stone, he had worn away her confidence, as he always did, and she had lost the dream somewhere along the way. When he suggested she work at Lambert for a few years in human resources until she had a better understanding of the business world, she gave in.
Five years later, she was still there. Or at least, she had been until two weeks ago.
She didn’t have to give up that dream. She swallowed the rest of her wine as the realization washed through her.
To hell with her father and his constant disapproval. She was now unemployed, with a world of possibilities spread out before her.
She had come of age to take control of her trust fund a year ago. It was long past time she took control of her life. There was no conceivable reason she couldn’t open a restaurant if she wanted, or two or three or ten, for that matter.
When she returned to Texas, she would set the wheels in motion.
Or maybe when this was all over, she would just throw the last of her good sense to the wind and open a restaurant down here for tourists.
“If this brilliance is just your hobby, why are you stuck in human resources? Isn’t that what you said you did?”
“Right. Until two weeks ago, I worked at Lambert Pharmaceuticals.”
“Your father’s company.” He sounded annoyed again, for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand. “I take it Swidell worked at the company, too.”
“You could say that. He’s the chief financial officer. My father’s right-hand man.”
She did her best to keep the bitterness from her voice, but she was afraid some filtered through anyway when he gave her a careful look.
“Daddy must have been royally annoyed at him for screwing around on his baby girl.”
She let out a breath. “Not quite.”
She should just stop here. Ren didn’t need to know all the pathetic details. But somehow the words escaped before she could call them back.
“He took Bradley’s side. My father couldn’t understand why I would possibly want to break the engagement over such a little indiscretion. After all, we weren’t even married yet. Why should I possibly be upset? A man is entitled to sow his last wild oats, right?”
“Not in my book,” Ren said tersely, furious at her bastard of a fiancé all over again.
She blinked at his vehemence. “Well, my father didn’t agree. He was furious with me for messing up something he had wanted since the day Bradley came to work for the company. He hasn’t spoken with me since I broke the engagement.”
Though she obviously tried to hide it, Ren heard the low, suppressed pain in her voice and realized her father had wounded her terribly. He ached for her, as well. What kind of father treated his child like an asset to be merged for his own gain?
His own father had been a constant source of strength to him during his life and had instilled honor and dignity in all of his children. Growing up, Ren had never doubted his father would back him in any fight he took on, as long as the cause was just.
He had always known his father was proud of him, that he and his siblings were his greatest joy.
Roberto Galvez had died in a construction accident while Ren was in grad school, and Ren still missed him every day.
With his life experience, he couldn’t understand a man like Wallace Lambert. If he had a daughter and any man treated her in this humiliating and demoralizing way, Ren would rip the guy from limb to limb, not throw a childish tantrum aimed at the injured party.
No wonder she doubted her father would be trying to find her.
Damn, he suddenly remembered, the pasta suddenly tasteless in his mouth. He had called the man not thirty minutes ago.
Her cell phone sat like a millstone in his pocket. He had given Olivia’s whereabouts up to a man who thought she should go ahead and marry a bastard who was already cheating on her before they even made it to the chapel, that she should consign herself to a life of adultery and broken vows.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” he said.
She misinterpreted his apology as general words of sympathy. She shrugged. “I’ve been disappointing my father all my life. This was nothing new, just maybe a little more intense. You know, the craziest part is that I didn’t even love Bradley. I only agreed to date him in the first place because it seemed to make my father so happy. And then I was caught up in everything until it all spiraled out of my control. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had done something right, something that would finally make my father proud of me.”
She winced and poured more wine—her third glass, he thought, but he didn’t say anything.
“Pathetic, isn’t it? A shrink would have a field day poking and prodding into my messed-up psyche. I mean, what kind of person would even consider marrying a man she didn’t love, would spend the rest of her life miserable and unhappy, just to please her father?”
He had to tell her about the phone call. The knowledge sat heavy in his gut. “Olivia—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, Ren Galvez.”
He raised an eyebrow, distracted. “Is that what you think? I don’t feel sorry for you. Not by a long shot. I think you had a lucky escape.”
She laughed, though he thought it had a slightly tipsy edge to it. “You’re absolutely right. I’m the luckiest woman in the whole wide world. I can’t believe I even considered marrying him. I thought I was using my head, for once, when I agreed to marry Bradley.”
She gestured with her wineglass. “You’d think I would figure out it could never work between us when I could barely stand to have him touch me. No, that’s not true. I didn’t dislike it, I was just…bored.”
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