“I’m glad you called. I’ve thought about you.”
“Have you? Can you forgive me? I was a bit presumptuous.” His voice lowered taking on a throaty whisper. She sighed and snuggled into the quilt, enjoying the mental picture she’d conjured up. “I would never hurt you, Nyssa. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. You’ve bailed me out of chaos more times than I can remember. I don’t want to lose what we have. Our friendship means everything to me.”
“Solo--”
“Still buds?”
“Yes.” How could she argue the point? He called when she was at her lowest. “Where are you? The connection is not very good.”
“I’m in Alaska.”
“You left early?”
Why was he calling? Although the phone rattled with static, she thought she could hear music in the background--muffled giggles. It didn’t sound solitary to her. She should hear a wolf howl or crickets or something.
“So, you’re where you want to be. Why the call?”
“I had to get away.” His voice crackled over the line, and she had to stop breathing to hear the rest of the conversation. “But they followed me. Nyssa, I can have a private plane at the Redmond airport in thirty minutes. I need you.”
She was falling again.
But she didn’t understand why he still needed her. If she figured correctly, he was somewhere between nowhere and the wilderness. He was probably huddled in a little tent and the caribou were grazing downstream. His zoom was set on his tripod and the pictures would be magnificent. “Solo, don’t you remember what I told you? I’ve other commitments. I--”
“I know. But I’m desperate for you. You won’t let me down, please? I’m begging.”
She sat up, the covers slipping down to her waist. “What’s going on? You sound dreadful.”
“Please, Nyssa. You have to hurry.”
“I don’t understand. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
But as she waited, breath held tight, all she could hear was a throaty purr in the background. And then the phone beeped off.
For the longest time she waited, receiver in one hand while she stared out the bedroom window. He was on an adventure. The assignment was all-important to him.
From the sound of his voice, he could have been in grave danger--danger from a purring seductress?
Thinking about it one more time, Nyssa came to a sudden and quick conclusion. This might be her last Solo St. John adventure. Perhaps she could be his damsel come to the rescue. But if she went with Solo to Alaska, would she then be just like all the other bimbos he'd dated?
She had thirty minutes to get her act together. That wasn’t enough time to pack and get to the airport, but she was sure the pilot would wait. Solo knew how long the trip would take.
So she was going to Alaska. Going after Solo.
She’d get to see the wilderness and work alongside him. She would pull Solo out of the clutches of any bimbo that came along. And, she told herself, Alaska would be the last time she’d allow herself to be alone with Solo St. John.
Chapter Four
The runway, which wasn’t a runway but a long strip of almost flat land, stood in the center of nowhere. The Alaskan prairie stretched onward for a half mile in every direction. To the south she could barely discern the lake they’d flown over before landing; to the north, west, and east a few scraggly trees rose to meet the sky. The earth was pristine and breathlessly clean.
Solo St. John was nowhere in sight. What could she expect? She tried for anger but decided that emotion was a waste of time. If Solo could have been here, he would have and so, with that idea in mind, she looked around.
After satisfying herself he didn’t intend to meet her at the airstrip, and after she watched the tiny plane that brought her to this desolate spot vanish in the sky against a backdrop of thunderheads, she began to walk.
A softly vanishing curl of smoke rose from the indentation of a deep valley to the west, so she headed in that direction. But doubts assailed her. He’d called her hadn’t he, or was all this an elaborate illusion? No, that was one thing Solo would never do. He’d never concoct a story like this, never lie to her. If he said he was desperate, he was desperate. But where was he.
She’d made it to the Redmond airport in less than an hour, a shoulder bag containing a few changes of clothing and other necessities over her arm. The pilot had grinned at her and with hardly a word spoken between them, took off. When she changed planes in Anchorage, the pilot gave her detailed directions to the cabin Solo occupied before he taxied down the runway.
Meanwhile, “What have I gotten myself into? There isn’t another living soul for miles and miles.” How on earth could one of Solo’s women find him way out here? The Colonel, of course. A stupid question. If there was another female with Solo, what could she do about it?
Alaska had not surprised her. This huge emptiness, the vast acres of land, and the barrenness that seemed to stretch on forever was everything she'd envisioned. What did surprise her was that she had not come up with a plan yet.
And now, grounded, she trudged toward what she hoped was an encampment of some sort. She never knew what living arrangements Solo would come up with, but she prayed this time there would be something better than a tent. The thought of a bear invading her bed was not pleasant.
Nyssa was the first to admit she preferred a soft bed and a roof over her head to sleeping in the great outdoors with nothing but the sky and twinkling stars above.
She began to have dangerous second thoughts as she walked on and could no longer see the thin spiral of smoke. The sky grew darker by the minute and the trail looked non-existent. But there was a trail and it did run in the direction of the smoke--if she could still see the smoke. Which she couldn’t.
This was the kind of thing she hated about Solo’s adventures. Nyssa pushed away a thorny bush. She seldom knew where she was until she was there. By that time it was always too late to turn around.
Alaska reminded her of the time she’d been stranded in the desert with Solo. While Solo ate the delicious flora and fauna of the arid, dry landscape, she escaped with second degree burns and a tarantula that couldn’t live without her.
That was the first time she vowed to never ever let him talk her into an adventure again. She was weak-willed. But she couldn’t blame her ineptness on Solo as she’d like to do.
When she saw a narrow curving road emerge from behind a thicket of bushes, her spirits lifted. Perhaps her luck was changing. Emitting a little determined sigh, she repositioned her shoulder bag and trudged on. Finally, she saw the cabin.
The place was larger than she’d prayed for. Of course it didn’t count that she’d prayed for anything larger than a tent. A wide porch wrapped around the outside. Light shinning from what looked to be a loft gave the retreat a romantic ambience.
A drop of rain brushed against her cheek. Lightning lit the sky and she heard a crack of thunder. She wasn’t sure what to do, rush the place or sneak around back, so she stood and stared while the rain began to do more than drip.
One car--so dirty its color was undistinguishable--sat in front of the cabin. So what was going on here? If there was a female, where was she? Did she drive to the cabin with him? If so, he deserved her. If not, why was she still here? No, she knew why. One thing Solo had trouble doing was telling a female to get lost. The word ‘no’ was not in his vocabulary.
Now that she was here, standing in front of his cabin, she still didn’t have a plan. She thought furiously as she started walking again.
A shiver shot down her spine when she stepped onto the porch. Her second step brought a loud creak to her ears, and with the noise, she froze. “I don’t know why I agreed to this. You’re going to owe me big time.” Valiantly though, she kept on, striding purposely to the front door. She tried to put on her most grim, threatening expression. He’d taken advantage of her one to many times, and before she made him phone or radio for a plane to take her home, she’d tell him what she thought.
/> She no sooner lifted her hand to knock than she saw Solo through the small window on the door. He sat on the couch, a strained expression marring his features while a tall voluptuous redhead cuddled next to him.
Nyssa narrowed her eyes, taking in the scene and realized that even though Solo didn’t fight the woman on his lap, he didn’t look like he enjoyed himself.
The redhead whispered in his ear and he choked. His hands gripped her waist, and pushed her away but she clung tenaciously. He talked to her, his voice muffled and no matter how Nyssa strained, she couldn’t hear what he said.
Suddenly his voice escalated and the conversation came to her loud and clear.
“What about the wolves and the bears?” the lady wailed, the threat of tears close. Poor Solo, he could never resist tears.
“You won’t hurt them will you?” Solo’s question should have amused her except Nyssa could sense the undercurrent of anger that charged the air when he spoke. Solo was known for his patience but at the moment, she guessed, he’d used all he’d been allotted.
“What if I get lost?”
“Oh, please,” Nyssa sighed.
“What was that?” Solo pushed one of the female’s wandering hands from one of his more delicate spots.
“No!” she screamed. “You can’t make me go out there. I’ll just die of fright.”
The woman plastered herself closer to Solo, if that was possible. And from her vantage point, Nyssa would not have wanted to bet on it.
“Hey, I’ll see you out to the car. After all, you found your way out here by yourself. Surely you can get back.”
“I didn’t know how awful it would be--how terrifying--how dangerous.” Real, fluid tears welled in her eyes and Nyssa stifled a sigh of exasperation. Something would have to be done soon or poor Solo might find himself saddled with this piece of baggage.
“It’s only two miles to the nearest trading post and from there you can call a pilot. I’ve got one on standby, for my personal use. I’ll radio ahead.”
Somehow the lady in question managed to snuggle in closer to Solo. Nyssa decided she’d seen enough. Act now, she chided herself, or forever hold your peace.
“I want to stay here with you,” the redhead purred, all remnants of tears long-gone.
A good scare would do the lady good, but she didn’t have a bear suit handy so perhaps something more drastic might do the trick. A gamble, but once she’d been pretty good at risk taking. So what if the stakes were higher this time? A man’s life, his self respect, that sounded too humbling. Perhaps she shouldn’t take it quite that far.
Solo always found a woman, except this time they were finding him by the droves, and he didn’t know what to do. Extricating himself from their unwanted clutches had never been a problem.
A frontal assault, offense in preference to defense, she decided was the best plan of action. She preferred open warfare to the sneaky approach. A few seconds passed while she debated the alternatives presented to her, but nothing leapt out at her.
So, grabbing the doorknob, she turned it and stepped into the room. For a brief moment she waited, petrified. The silence and fierce scrutiny she faced stole her breath. While her heart thundered against her rib cage, she searched for the right words in this situation. Nothing, absolutely nothing, surfaced.
Even as the rush of adrenalin surged through her, she started to speak, anticipating Solo’s next move, but stopped short when she caught the relieved look in Solo’s gaze. Courage exploded within her and she took heart. She was needed. He looked expectant, perhaps apprehensive, but also grateful.
She nodded to him, hoping she’d think of something to say. The redhead, realizing an intruder had entered the room, looked up from her intimate position. Her dark eyes were shadowed then turned belligerent.
Good, Nyssa thought, she could handle belligerent. She was, after all, Solo’s damsel come to his rescue. This lady should be vanquished in a manner of minutes if she could think of something to say.
Seconds felt like hours while she let her gaze sweep around the room. The door to the bedroom was open. The sheets tossed and tangled as if something playful had toyed with them.
It didn’t take much to envision him, half-naked, sleepy, in bed, and wrapped in the redhead’s arms.
“Nyssa?” His sexy voice brought her out of the spell she’d almost smothered herself in.
“Get your hands off my husband!” Nyssa’s voice blurted out but her few crisp words had the desired effect. The lady’s hands dropped to her sides and her lips moved in a pert little moue.
At least Solo had the presence of mind to take advantage of her verbal warning. Standing, he neatly dumped the woman on her rounded derriere onto the couch.
If Nyssa hadn’t felt such outrage, the scene could have been construed as comical. But she did feel intense indignation and a possessiveness she wouldn’t analyze at the moment.
“Your husband?” The female cooed unbelievingly. “Now why do I find that hard to believe?”
“What a surprise darling.” She turned to Solo. “Is this one willing, eager, or able? Or perhaps a combination of all three?” She did try to push the anger from her voice. But then she thought it was a nice touch and if anger got rid of the female it was worth the embarrassment.
“Of all the nerve!”
“Yes, my wife does have--nerve. Among other things.” Solo still stood, open-mouthed, as Nyssa made her way across the room.
Nyssa ran her hand up Solo’s arm and endeavored for sultry instead of anger in her tone. “Sorry the plane took so long. Just like you asked, I bought a silky little black thing for bed.”
There were a number of things that could go wrong. For starters, Solo could deny the relationship, and then of course the redhead could figure out she lied. Somehow she didn’t expect either scenario.
“Pumpkin,” Solo said with a husky little growl in the timbre of his voice.
Pumpkin?
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
Before she had a chance to answer, he had maneuvered around discarded clothes and tumbled furniture to make his way to the kitchen and back with a glass, and was now pouring. He grinned from ear-to-ear and she felt a real sense of accomplishment.
“I tried to tell her I was spoken for, but until you showed up she didn’t believe me.”
“The Colonel will hear about this. You can count on it. And he’ll pay, too.” The redhead flashed them both a look of disapproval and fury. “The Colonel set this all up. And now what am I supposed to do?”
“Go home,” they answered in unison.
The redhead stood and adjusted her clothing while she managed a suspended glare at them. “The Colonel said you were looking for a soul mate, not that you already had one. So why did he send me all the way out here to be humiliated? I think the papers back home would be delighted in this little affair and I’ll just bet you’re not married. Now that will put a nice touch on the headlines of the society pages.”
Only the rigid set to Solo’s jaw clued Nyssa into the tension radiating from his powerful frame. He kept looking at her, a strange expression molded onto his face. She’d never seen him look at her quite that way before.
“Bet all you want.” His voice was a sexy whisper close to Nyssa’s ear. He smoothed her hair from her face, his finger making strange forays down her neck, even as the redhead stared at them with open disbelief.
“You must be cold.” His deep blue eyes flickered over her, licking her with fire.
Almost as if the suggestion triggered the reaction, she felt her body shudder. Yet it wasn’t the coolness of the night air that made her shiver but the warmth from his body, the heat he made sweep through her with the barest suggestion of intimacy.
Safari Moon Page 6
