by JoAnn Ross
4
K.J.’S MIND WAS WHIRLING. All this time in the jungle must have gotten to him, because Alec was obviously demented. And even if he wasn’t mad, he was definitely dangerous. The man facing her across the wobbly table might live in the twentieth century, but he was unmistakably a warrior of old. His cheekbones were a ruthless slash, his square jaw was firmly set and his eyes were case-hardened steel.
She had no trouble picturing him living back during those brutal times of Highland clans, warring, pillaging, raping. Not that he’d ever have to rape any woman, she thought as hormones that seemed to have gone into hibernation after she’d escaped Las Vegas sudden awakened and began bouncing around inside her like steel balls in a pinball machine.
She had to focus on why she’d come all this way to the middle of the Amazon jungle. It was imperative that she keep her mind on her goal and her eyes on the prize.
Fighting for calm, determined that he not sense her trepidation, she met his dangerous, unblinking gaze straight on.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Alec, we’re not exactly living in the seventeenth century.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed, Kate,” he drawled. “Which is why I’ve never held the Campbells’ bloody murderous deeds against you.”
“You can’t be serious. That was over three centuries ago!”
Although the episode wasn’t actually spoken of in her family, she could not have been of Scots heritage and not known of the country’s most notorious massacre. Which was, considering its violent history, really saying something. It had been on a cold February night in 1692, when a group of soldiers from the clan Campbell, housed by the MacDonalds, rose up and murdered their hosts. According to Alec’s version of the ancient tale, one of the MacDonald wives had come from the Mackenzie clan.
“Besides, the Mackenzies weren’t actually saints,” she insisted, not bothering to defend the indefensible.
“Ah, now we’re back to the tale of Fergus Mackenzie allegedly stealing a Campbell’s cattle.”
“It was more than alleged. The Mackenzie was subsequently hanged for his crimes.”
“Since the Campbells had sold out to the English king, it’s not surprising the law ruled the way it did,” he retorted.
“And am I to assume that you’d also be blaming the English for your ancestor Mackenzie stealing away a Campbell wife?”
“Only because the Campbell was known throughout Scotland for getting drunk and beating the poor woman. I’d do the same thing myself in a heartbeat. Although,” he admitted, “if she were half as much of a trial as you, my darling Kate, I might have been tempted to beat her myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I wouldn’t put it to the test.”
How did he do it? K.J. wondered furiously. This conversation she’d thought she’d planned so well during her trip to the Amazon was turning out to be a replay of that fatal morning, when an argument over the future of their marriage had escalated into a ridiculous argument over a centuries-old blood feud that both families should have put behind them when they’d landed on American shores.
“You’re doing it again,” she complained. “Sidetracking me. This isn’t about clans or murders, or stolen cows, or even adulterous wives, Alec. I’ve come to discuss a divorce.”
“Have you now?” He eyed her blandly over the mouth of the bottle as he took another long drink of beer that he was suddenly wishing was something stronger. “And here I figured you’d braved those river rapids to suggest that, after all these months of separation, we should finally begin living as man and wife.”
“Alec, that little speech about how the Mackenzie men always honor their vows is all very good and makes you sound incredibly noble, despite being the descendent of a convicted and hanged thief.” She couldn’t resist tacking that on. “But surely you can’t expect it to apply in this case.”
“I don’t see why not. Just because times change doesn’t mean that morals and honor should be tossed aside. Perhaps, if more men felt the way I do, the divorce rate wouldn’t be so high.”
K.J. thought of all the friends she knew who’d complained that their husbands no longer paid attention to them now that they’d married, or worse yet, the ones whose husbands had been unfaithful to their vows, and reluctantly admitted that he might have a point. But she had no intention of admitting that.
“I hadn’t realized you’d earned a degree in sociology. ”
“I don’t need a degree to know that too many men—and women—take their marriage vows too lightly.”
“Exactly.” Now they were finally getting somewhere, K.J. thought “And, like it or not, that’s what happened to us, Alec. We were both swept away with the emotion of that night, neither of us knew what we were doing—”
“I knew,” he interrupted quietly.
“What?” She pushed some tangled hair off her forehead with an impatient hand and stared at him.
“I knew exactly what I was doing that night.”
“Oh . . . well, that makes one of us.” She took a deep breath and forced herself not to look away from his unblinking gaze. “The thing is, I wasn’t exactly myself that night and I don’t think that both of us should have to keep paying for my mistake.”
“But I’ve told you, Kate, I don’t consider it a mistake. The way I see it, our only mistake was not living together afterward.”
“We’ve already been through that.”
“The hell we have.” His mild voice turned to stone. Granite, she thought, covered in sleet.
His jaw clenched painfully. When frustration rose hot and acrid in his throat, Alec picked up the beer and swallowed to force it back down. When he slammed the empty bottle onto the table, their gazes locked again.
“I may be a typical man when it comes to avoiding conversations about male-female relationships, Kate, but even I don’t consider a few brief lines scribbled on a piece of hotel stationery all that much of a discussion.”
Once again K.J. couldn’t deny that he had a very valid point. Which was the real reason why, coward that she was when it came to this man, she’d avoided even attempting to get in touch with him since that horrid morning.
Although she’d been telling herself for months that hers and Alec’s marriage was not only a reckless mistake, but a sham as well, she couldn’t honestly justify the way she’d chosen to escape it. She’d opted for the coward’s way out. And had regretted it ever since.
“You walked out on me first,” she insisted.
“I may have left the suite,” he allowed, “for a time.” The steel in his voice now echoed the glint in his eyes. “But I wasn’t the one who walked away from our marriage.”
Another good point, dammit. “I suppose, all things considered, you’re entitled to an explanation,” she conceded.
“On that we agree.” He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest.
A chest that, heaven help her, K.J. could remember kissing on her way down to his taut stomach. And beyond. A heat that had nothing to do with the equatorial temperatures flooded into her cheeks, scorching her already sunburned skin.
“So, shoot, my dear wife,” he invited. “I’ve been waiting a very long time to hear this excuse.”
She’d had such a nice little speech prepared back in Manhattan. Clever words she’d written on her laptop computer and edited again and again to get precisely the proper repentant tone. Words designed to end their ill-conceived marriage and convince him to accompany her back to New York for Heart Books’s bachelor auction. Words she’d memorized on her flight to South America, then had honed one last time on her boat ride down the river.
Unfortunately, like everything else where Alec Mackenzie was concerned, nothing about this trip was going as planned.
She nervously cleared her parched throat.
“I fully intend to explain. But first, if you don’t mind, I believe I’ll take you up on that offer of a beer, after all.”
When a few more damp tangles of hair fell over her
eye, she pushed them back over her shoulder. “I swear it’s as hot in here as it is outside.”
“You know what they say. It’s not the temperature, but the humidity.” He lifted two fingers toward Sonia, who’d given up all pretense of work and was now openly watching them, her dark eyes revealing her obvious irritation at the appearance of a female rival. “We’re smack in the middle of the monsoon season.”
“So I’ve discovered.” K.J. could feel the sweat beading unattractively above her upper lip. She took a tissue from one of the outside pockets of her camera bag and blotted it away. “What kind of rain doesn’t cool things down, anyway?”
“The jungle kind. In case you haven’t noticed, sweetheart, you’re not exactly in Kansas anymore.”
“I’ve never even been to Kansas.” But the state famous for its sweet corn had to be a lot more hospitable than this place. K.J. found herself wishing for a pair of sparkly ruby slippers so she could click the heels together and escape this suffocating, verdant green steam bath.
“Don’t be so damn literal. As an editor, you of all people should recognize a metaphor.”
Exhaustion, heat and nerves tangled, making her want to scream. Or throw something. If she hadn’t had her period before embarking on this ridiculously conceived adventure, K.J. might have suspected she’d come down with the world’s worst case of PMS.
“And you, as such a hotshot adventure writer, should be able to come up with a more original one,” she countered as she took off the wrinkled jacket and tossed it over the back of the empty chair beside her. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. She didn’t feel one whit cooler.
“Ah, but that’s what I have an editor for,” he said. “To keep me honest. And reasonably original.”
As frustrated as she was, K.J. couldn’t deny that he was definitely an original. She’d never met a man anything like Alec Mackenzie. And she also figured she could probably go the rest of her life without ever meeting another.
That idea caused her mood to shift quickly and dramatically. Now, instead of wanting to shout or scream at him, K.J. found herself on the verge of tears. Having never been a crybaby, she could only conclude that she must be having a nervous breakdown.
Trying to survive in a hostile jungle environment could probably cause any sane person to become a bit unraveled, she assured herself, grasping for any thin straw of reason. Which unfortunately didn’t say a lot for the potential of success during the rest of her mission.
A silence settled over the table. Since she’d already admitted she hadn’t come all this way to jump into his hammock and begin making up for lost time, Alec certainly wasn’t in any hurry for Kate to put her cards on the table.
He was more than willing to wait her out. As he’d been doing for the past eleven-plus months. Months he’d swung back and forth between cold fury, dogged determination and atypical pessimism.
It was the pessimism he was most angry about. It had not only been highly uncharacteristic, but damn surprising. A man who traveled the world chasing after hidden treasure had to be, by nature, an optimist. But Kate’s betrayal had changed all that.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, always underlying everything was a deep, unrelenting, painful desire for his runaway bride that went all the way to the marrow of his bones.
Across the table, K.J. sighed again. Heavier, deeper, in a way that did intriguing things to her breasts. Alec watched the way they rose and fell beneath the sodden white T-shirt she’d worn beneath her unlined linen jacket, and felt that all-too-familiar hunger pool painfully in his loins.
He wondered what she’d do if he just threw her over his shoulder and carried her out of the cantina to his hut, where he could rip off those ugly damp clothes, bury himself deep inside her and satiate the sexual hunger he’d tried like hell to ignore but which had been clawing at him since he’d first heard she was on her way to his jungle outpost. It was certainly what his Mackenzie ancestors would have done.
Sometimes, Alec concluded grimly, civilization sucked.
The thick, uneasy mood was momentarily shattered by Sonia’s arrival at the table. The ebony-haired barmaid slammed the bottles down, causing foam to bubble over the top and down the sides of the brown glass. Her expression worlds away from her usual bold, flirtatious one, she snatched the colorful bills from Alec’s hand, shoved them into the front of her embroidered cotton blouse, speared a hot lethal glare at K.J., then stomped away.
“I do hope I’m not interfering with anything personal, ” K.J. murmured, watching the way the barmaid’s skirt rustled with the exaggerated sway of her voluptuous hips.
K.J. wondered if the woman had been serving Alec more than just beer, and was surprised when that thought made her want to tear that thick black hair out by the roots. And that was just for starters.
“Nothing worth mentioning.” Alec decided that Kate’s unsuccessful attempt to keep the jealousy from her voice was encouraging. He might not be an expert on marriage, but he suspected that a jealous wife was not an indifferent one.
Because he could no longer be this close to his runaway wife without touching her, he skimmed a fingertip down the back of the hand that was resting on the table. She was still wearing her nails unpolished, and even though they were as short as they’d been when he’d slipped that woven gold ring on her finger, Alec could remember, in vivid detail, exactly how they’d felt digging into his shoulders, raking down his bare back, holding on for dear life as he’d taken them beyond the dangerous rapids into the raging torrent.
“Would it bother you if you were?”
“Were what?” she asked softly, seeming entranced by the sight of his dark fingers on her skin.
“Interfering in some hot illicit affair I was having with Sonia?” He was honestly interested, then equally annoyed when he realized he was practically holding his breath, awaiting her answer.
“Not at all.”
Sonia. Even the woman’s name sounded lush and sexy, K.J. thought grimly. A woman named Sonia would never wear taupe career-woman suits, worry about E-mail or deadlines. A woman named Sonia would be too busy with hot, hedonistic pleasures to get anywhere near a slush pile.
“What you do—and with whom you do it—is entirely your business.” Liar. Heaven help her, she did care, K.J. realized with surprise. Too much.
Alec might have almost believed her had it not been for the faint, almost indiscernible tremor in her voice.
“I never realized you were one of those modern women who believe in open marriages.”
“Of course I don’t. I’ve always been a firm believer in monogamy. However, despite your insistence that we have a contractual obligation, Alec, you can’t deny that no court in the land could possibly uphold a contract that was entered into with false intentions.”
“Sorry,” he said, perversely enjoying being difficult. After all, she’d certainly put him through enough grief. Until Katherine Jeanne Campbell had come crashing into his life, Alec hadn’t even realized that one woman—and a skinny one at that—could possess the power to take over his mind and body and make him so damn miserable. “But I, for one, wasn’t the one with false intentions. In fact, I was up front with you from the very beginning. Other guys might have just been satisfied with a one-night stand. But I explained that I wanted more than that from you, Kate. A lot more.”
Since K.J. couldn’t quite figure out how to admit she hadn’t been really listening all that closely to what he’d been saying that night, she didn’t reply.
Alec turned his hand, linking their fingers together. “My parents met when they were undergraduates at Cornell,” he said quietly. “They were divorced when I was nine, which didn’t really bother me, since I was in boarding school at the time and never saw them all that much, anyway.
“My mother went on to have a successful career as a concert pianist and acquired two more husbands before I graduated from college. The last time I heard from my father, who’s an anthropologist, he was somewhere in New Zealand, studying abori
gines and about to take a fourth wife. She’s the daughter of some tribal chief. She’s also one-third his age.”
She might have missed a few pertinent bits of information that night, but K.J. knew she’d remember him telling her all this.
“That must have been difficult,” she murmured, her heart aching for the boy he must have been. At least she’d shared nine wonderful, exciting years with her globe-trotting parents.
“It wasn’t as bad as it probably sounds to an outsider. Their careers were the main focus of their lives, and they were both incredibly selfish people. I was merely a mistake from a drunken New Year’s Eve.”
“They actually told you that?” K.J. was aghast.
“Sure.” Alec shrugged. The knowledge had years ago lost its ability to cause pain. “It was their explanation why they didn’t have any time or room for a kid in their lives.”
“I still can’t imagine telling your own child that he was unwanted.”
“Not exactly unwanted. They were also quick to point out that my mother didn’t have to put her career on hold for those months to carry me, since she could have gotten a legal abortion in Europe. Or even by one of their medical doctor friends.”
“Well, I certainly think she deserves a medal for that act of martyrdom,” K.J. said dryly. “It’s too bad I′m not Catholic. I could write to the Pope and nominate her for sainthood.”
Alec looked at her for a long moment. “I wasn’t aware you’d care.”
“How could I not?” Surely he didn’t think she was that cold and unfeeling?
He gave her another long look, then shrugged. “Like I said, it wasn’t that bad. Since they were never around, I didn’t miss them when I got sent off to that military school in New Mexico right after my sixth birthday. And from the gossip I’ve heard over the years, I think I lucked out not meeting some of the stepparents.”
K.J. felt the moisture swimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
