He stared at her. Then laughed. “Fuck, no. Jesus, that’s all I need—two babies screaming day and night.”
“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “I thought . . .”
“Yeah,” he said. He leaned forward slightly to direct Jules. “Left at the light.” He settled back in his seat and briefly met her eyes. “I know what you thought. But the baby’s not exactly easy to handle. Mary Lou hasn’t had the chance to get off all the extra weight from the pregnancy. She doesn’t fit into any of her old clothes, but she doesn’t want to buy anything new. I keep telling her to, but she won’t—like that would be admitting defeat or something. I don’t know. Next right,” he said to Jules.
“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said again. “I didn’t mean to . . .” She shook her head.
“Yeah, well, welcome to my life. I didn’t mean to either.” He looked out the window, the muscle jumping in his jaw.
She looked at the lines of strain on his face, at the grim set of his mouth, remembering how he had always been so quick to smile. She watched him for as long as she dared, feeling awful for him and for Mary Lou, too, remembering the way Sam had been so eager to get out of his house. I’m outta here. Alyssa wasn’t the only one who’d been injured here. That was easy, sometimes, to forget.
She turned back around and caught Jules’s eye. He gave her a look that she read quite easily—it was an “oh my God, did you have to ask him that” look. But then he made a sympathetic face and down near the seat, where Sam couldn’t see, he made the ASL sign for “I love you.”
Alyssa sent him back a more international sign that meant something rather different.
Jules tried his best not to smile.
So much for her attempt at small talk.
“Try to sleep.”
Savannah ungritted her teeth to say, “I can’t.” Her heart was beating too hard. She could feel it pounding in her chest, almost shaking her body.
She heard Ken sigh in the relentless darkness inside of the blind he’d built around them. “If you close your eyes it won’t seem so dark.”
“But when I open them, I get dizzy.”
Silence. And then another sigh. “You know what I’m going to say to that, right?”
“So keep them shut. Yes. Thanks so very much. It’s not that easy. Oh!” She sat up, but nearly fell over because she couldn’t see even her hand in front of her face. “We never put antibacterial gel on your rope burns.”
Ken sighed again. Very deeply this time. “Savannah, I’m fine.”
Oh God, it was dark. She had to brace herself with both hands on the ground on either side of her to keep from losing her balance. Her heart was racing as if she’d just run a mile. Her chest hurt, and her head was pounding, and it was hard to breathe. “You said it was easy to get an infection out here because—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what I said. Just—”
“Kenny,” she gasped, “I’m so sorry, but I think I’m having a heart attack.”
She heard him moving toward her in the small space, felt his hand connect with her leg. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay, just try to breathe slowly, all right? Deeply. Come on, I can hear you—you’re hyperventilating—that’s not a heart attack. You’re just getting too much oxygen because your breathing got all messed up.”
He touched her other leg, then felt his way up to the rest of her, pulling her against him and settling back onto the ground with his arms around her, her back to his front. “Shhh,” he said. He cupped one hand loosely around her mouth and nose. “Just close your eyes and breathe as deeply as you can.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Hyperventilating. How embarrassing. Her grandmother had gone one on one with Nazi spies without flinching, and Savannah freaked out because it was too dark.
“You’re doing great.” Ken’s voice was right in her ear. “I know I’m not supposed to ever touch you again, but is this helping a little?”
It was. His hand smelled like the jungle dirt and the plants he’d cut to create a canopy of branches above them. His body was so solid and warm.
He shifted and she clung to his arms. “Don’t let go of me!”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m just . . .” He shifted again. “There was a rock right under me. It’s gone now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
“You’re sorry that it’s gone?” he said. “That’s pretty harsh.”
“No,” she said. “I’m just . . . sorry.”
She was breathing more slowly now, and he took his hand from her face.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve noticed—you’ve said that about two million times.”
“I’m . . .” She stopped herself from saying sorry.
“I can feel your heart,” he told her. “I think what you’re having is a panic attack. It’s not going to kill you. It’s just a little scary though, huh? Does this happen to you often?”
“Never,” she said. It was starting to get hard to breathe again. “God! How do I make it stop?”
He covered her mouth and nose again. “Have you ever been underwater at night? This is the same kind of darkness. If you let it, it can feel nice—kind of like being at the bottom of the pool. The water surrounds you in the same way, you know?”
Savannah nodded. She did know.
“Hey, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you and now seems to be a pretty perfect time since you’re not sleeping and I’m not sleeping,” Kenny told her. “It’s about the other night. When we, you know, got it on?”
“No,” Savannah said, her voice muffled beneath his hand. “I’m not having sex with you ever again, remember?” Although, right now, it might just be the distraction that she needed. If he kissed her, she wouldn’t push him away.
But he didn’t kiss her. It was almost a shame.
“Believe me, you made that perfectly clear. I’m just wondering . . .” His laughter sounded embarrassed. “Maybe this is a really stupid question, and forgive me if it is, but you’re like a walking orgasmatron. I mean, I’ve never been with a woman who, you know, detonates upon . . . I was barely inside of you and . . . It’s like you’ve got a hair trigger or something. Touch it and, bam.”
Savannah could not believe he was talking about this. She was back to gritting her teeth, but for an entirely different reason now. “Yes, Ken, this is a really stupid question.”
“Well, wait. I haven’t even gotten to the question yet. What I want to know is, when you’re out walking around, if you accidentally bump into something, do you, like, have an orgasm?”
She laughed in surprise. “What?”
“I just wanted to know.” He was actually serious. “This is a brand new one for me and—”
“Oops,” she said, “you just bumped me. Oh! Ooooh! Unh!”
“Sure,” Ken said. “Mock me. Go ahead. I’m genuinely interested because it was . . .”
She waited.
“Great,” he finished quietly. “It was fricking great, all right? To have you do that was . . .”
She waited again. He’d succeeded in completely distracting her with his ridiculous question, but now her heart was beating harder again for an entirely different reason.
“I mean, what’s the most number of orgasms you’ve had at any one time?”
Oh, brother. Typical of a man to turn it into a contest. “I don’t know. I don’t keep score. It’s not about that.”
“It’s not?” he asked. “I mean, baby, if I could do what you do, I’d be, like, running all kinds of tests to see—”
Tests? She laughed. “How would you do that? Would you get a vibrator and lock yourself in some room for days on end?”
He was actually considering her question, as if she’d asked it seriously. “Well, I think I’d probably prefer a human partner, but—”
“For a woman, sex isn’t really so much about the mechanics as it is about . . .” She searched for the right words. Love was definitely not one she wanted to use. Not
with Kenny. Not now. She started over. “It’s not just a physical thing. It’s mental and emotional, too. For me, it’s not about ‘oh, if someone touches me right there, in that exact spot, I’ll come right away,’ like it’s some kind of magic button or something. It’s about who’s touching me, and how badly I want them to touch me, and what I see in their eyes when they touch me.”
Ken was silent, which she’d learned meant that he was thinking about what she’d just said. And probably getting ready to ask her more hideously embarrassing questions.
“Can we not talk about this anymore?” she asked somewhat desperately.
“How about we stop talking and just have sex instead?” His mouth was so close to her ear, she could feel the heat of his breath. If she turned her head, she could kiss him.
“Go to sleep,” she said instead. “You’re such a—”
“Jerk,” he finished for her. She could tell from the sound of his voice that he was smiling. “Yeah, I know. Still, I had to ask. You know, ’cause maybe you changed your mind, right? But, sleep—that’s a good idea, too. Not as much fun, but definitely my second choice for this evening’s activity.”
He was quiet for several long seconds, and then he asked, “You okay now?”
She was. As long as he kept her arms around her. “Don’t leave,” she begged him. “Please.” He’d told her he was going to go out and scout the surrounding area. If she woke up in this darkness and he was gone . . .
“I won’t,” he promised. “Not tonight, okay?”
Thank God. “Do you mind sleeping like this?” she had to ask, not sure what she would do if he said yes.
Kenny laughed softly. “Yeah, right, I mind it a whole lot. But somehow I’ll muddle through.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eleven
“What are you doing here?”
It was a damn good question—and one that Jones had an easy answer for. He held up the book that had managed to find its way into his bag yesterday afternoon on the boat.
“This is Molly’s,” he said. “I’m returning it.”
He’d found it this morning, in with his stuff. She’d probably missed having it to read last night before she went to sleep. It didn’t seem right to make her wait until tonight to give it back.
Billy Bolten’s voice was loaded with hostility. “She’s in the middle of a class right now.”
Jones knew. He could see her with about a dozen little kids in the shade of a tree.
Billy reached for the book. “I’ll give it to her when she’s done.”
Jones stepped back. “No, that’s all right. I’ll wait.”
He glanced over at Molly again and at that exact moment, she looked up and saw him. And smiled.
It was like being struck by lightning.
Yeah, right, he was here to return the book. That was just a lame excuse. What he’d really wanted was to see Molly. To see that smile. To try to sweet-talk her into running with him all the way back down the trail to his camp, so he could pull her into his arms and kiss her, pull up her skirt and lose himself inside of her soft heat.
Jesus, he wanted her. He’d woken up wanting her, just as he’d known he would.
Billy laughed with derision. “You’re totally wasting your time, man. She is so out of your league.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” She looked over at him again, and this time the warmth and—Jesus—admiration in her eyes pissed him off.
She thought he was some kind of hero. She thought he was special, that he was good and kind and just like her.
But she was wrong.
He was a liar and a thief, and as soon as he got tired of her, he would take what little she had and never come back.
The thought of never coming back made his chest ache. But it would happen. When he left, it would be because he wanted to.
“Don’t mistake her friendliness for something that it’s not,” Billy warned him.
“I know,” Jones lied. “She’s already told me she just wants to be friends.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, that’s what she told me, too.” Billy warmed considerably toward him at that news, just as Jones had expected. They would now bond in their mutual misery.
Billy sighed. “I know she’s older but there’s something, I don’t know, magical about her. When she smiles . . .” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “You know, you can’t help but look at her and imagine just what she could do to you with a mouth like that.”
Jones kept his own voice low, his tone easygoing. “If you ever say anything like that again—no, if you so much as think those thoughts, I will come into your tent in the middle of the night while you are sleeping and cut your balls off.” He smiled at the younger man. “Got that, junior?”
Billy blinked at him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, apparently thought better of it, then turned and quickly walked away. So much for bonding.
Across the clearing, Molly was watching, curiosity in her eyes. She shook her head at him and, as he watched, scribbled something on a piece of paper. She folded it in half and in half again, then handed it to a little girl, turning to say something and point at him.
And here came the little girl, trotting towards him. Note from Molly in hand.
She handed it to him with a giggle, and dashed back to her class.
Jones unfolded the note. Molly had bold, messy handwriting. He had to work to make out the words.
“You’re distracting me,” it said. It was underlined, with three exclamation points. “Wait in my tent and I’ll be done here more quickly.”
It was an invitation into her tent. Jones practically ran all the way there. He knew she had rules about what could or couldn’t go on in there, but in his experience, rules were made to be broken.
It was cool inside, even with the flaps down. Cool and dimly lit.
He looked around, breathing in her scent. She’d washed out some clothes and hung them on a line she’d stretched across the middle of the room. Underwear. It slid cool and damp and soft through his fingers.
A notebook was open on her table. “Dear Chelsea,” he read, “I have met the most incredible, wonderful, inspiring man . . .”
This was a letter to her grown-up daughter, dated last night. He knew he had no business reading it, but he couldn’t resist hearing what Molly had to say about him. Inspiring. Jesus. She was a lousy judge of character.
“. . . and I finally know where I am going, what I’ll be doing in a month when my time here on Parwati Island is through.” What the hell was she talking about? She was leaving Parwati in a month?
“His name is . . .” What?
He read it again.
“His name is Father Benjamin Soldano, and I met him purely by chance at a church in the city. A child from our village got terribly sick, and I wrangled a ride to the hospital via airplane from one of the American ex-pats living in these mountains. (The very man you warned me about in your last letter, Chel!) He was quite the hero—you have nothing to fear. I don’t know where he’s been or what he’s done—or what’s been done to him. Lots, I think. Lots of luggage, very private stuff. But he’s a kind man, a gentle man beneath that ‘don’t touch me or I’ll kill you’ facade. I can tell you this: I would trust him with my life without hesitation.”
Wrong. He was not to be trusted—how could she write that with such conviction? A few conversations, an afternoon spent fucking, and she thought she knew enough about him to trust him with her life? What was wrong with her?
“I can’t tell you much about him here,” her words continued, “but I’ll fill you in in a few weeks when I come visit.
“Let me tell you instead about Ben. You would love him as much as I do. We met because he was also staying at Nadine and Ira’s house that night after I brought Joaquin and his mother to the hospital, and it was amazing! We were two old friends who had never seen each other before—we clic
ked instantly and talked almost all night long.”
That was the night she’d taken Jones out to dinner. She’d said good night to him, then gone and stayed up all night with this Ben.
Jesus Christ, he was actually jealous. Jealous that she’d talked with another man. A priest no less. He had no right to be jealous of that, but he was.
“He’s convinced me to come join his mission in Africa, so that’s where I’ll be heading next. It will help ease the pain of leaving this place and these people—so many of whom I’ve come to love. Too many of whom I’ve come to love. Oh, Chelsea, I wish I could tell you about this absolutely stupid thing I’ve done, but I don’t dare write it down.”
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 28
