Pictures of You

by Barbara Delinsky

  She must have dozed off, lying as she was on the rock, when a distant noise broke through the haze of consciousness. Opening her eyes, she saw that the sun had disappeared behind billowing clouds, taking its protective robe from her. She sat up to go for her clothes when her eye froze on Roberto’s tall, lean form lounging casually against a tree, his gaze glued to her.

  Instinctively, she lifted her arms to cover her bare breasts, a combination of anger and embarrassment bringing a flush to her cheeks. “What are you, some kind of peeping Tom?” she snapped.

  “Don’t cover yourself. You really are beautiful,” his velvety voice commanded through a broad smile as his eyes dropped to her breasts, caressing them until Eva felt them firm under her own protective hands.

  “May I have my clothes, please?” He stood right next to them and she didn’t quite trust herself to approach him, the tremors of arousal involuntarily beginning.

  “No. You’ll have to come and get them.”

  “Please throw them to me, Roberto.”

  “Come and get them. I have something to show you anyway, when you’re ready to come over here.” His teasing tone and mischievous grin hinted at some other source of excitement than the one Eva was already acutely aware of. She sensed that there had to be some explanation for his sudden turnaround in mood.

  As though to underscore his words, Roberto stooped and picked up her bra and T-shirt and tucked them under his arm with an even more devilish twist of his lips.

  “What is it?” Suddenly it dawned on her. “The Topaz! Roberto, did you reach the Topaz?” she shrieked, momentarily forgetting her immediate predicament. At his confirming nod and continuing grin, Eva jumped up and ran to him, her hands still crisscrossed on her chest.

  “Let me see! Come on!” she bubbled with an enthusiasm as much due to the lightness of his mood as to the discovery of the gem.

  Slowly he pulled a small, pink-yellow piece of stone from his pocket. It was breathtaking, even without the sun’s electrification. As she stood mesmerized by its raw beauty, he explained.

  “This is only a small crystal which we found nearby. The Topaz itself is on a higher ledge. We need different equipment to remove it, now that we’ve broken through. We’ll be able to get it out tomorrow morning. I left the others finishing the digging down there so it should be safe.”

  Eva hadn’t taken her eyes from the topaz. “It’s beautiful, Roberto. I can’t begin to picture an even larger piece of that magnificence!” Slowly she raised her eyes to his. “Thank you for coming out to show me. I appreciate it!” Could he see how much, she wondered.

  His smile became mischievous again as he replaced the crystal into his pocket. “There’s a price, Eva.” Without another word, he placed his hands onto her wrists and, despite the resistance of her arms against his, he slowly and steadily drew them away from her chest, laying open to his gaze the graceful curves of her full breasts, their rosy centers firmed in excitement. Her eyes never left his as they took in this, her own raw beauty.

  When she could bear his gaze no longer, she lowered her head and begged him, “Roberto, please don’t.”

  His forefinger cupped her chin and drew it up, and he looked into her eyes as he spoke softly, gently, “You’re beautiful, Eva. You’re a gem in your own right.”

  His words and their underlying sensuality captivated her. She was helpless to resist when he lowered his lips to reverently kiss the breasts that lay bare to his touch. Her nerve ends came alive, each one tingling with the passion that had begun to build within her. A moan of ecstasy slipped through her lips as his continued their exploration over her soft, ivory flesh, his tongue further tantalizing the buds which had swelled to their fullest.

  Eva had to reach to his shoulders for support, her knees weakened by the quivering of her limbs. She buried her face in his dark hair, stroking it, kissing it, until she felt herself drawn down to her knees, then eased onto her back by Roberto’s powerful grasp. She was totally under his spell now. Her heart thudded noisily within her as she watched him remove his shirt. His need matched hers, she knew; it was the one thing they shared.

  Eva grasped in pure delirium as he lowered his warm body over hers, her breasts against his hair-roughened chest. It was flesh against flesh, man against woman in the most basic interchange of life. She writhed beneath him in eagerness to touch every inch of his skin.

  In one tender moment Roberto raised his mouth from hers to gaze into her eyes. He spoke in the low and husky tone that excited her all the more.

  “You were well named, Eva. You are an Eve in this garden of Eden. You belong here, lying naked on that rock. The only difference is that … you are wearing blue jeans,” he murmured, his eyes twinkling suggestively as his hand seared a path down her abdomen onto her thigh and then back again, sending currents of desire through her.

  She could only manage a breathless “Roberto” before his lips possessed hers with the urgency of exploding passion. She clung to him weakly, his hardness so electrifying to her, and returned his caresses with such ardor that neither of them noticed that it had begun to rain until the drops fell steadily from his shoulders onto hers.

  “Roberto! It’s raining!” Eva managed to cry out between kisses. She was only well aware of his fear of a heavy rainstorm and what it could do to the mine.

  “Oh, my God, the mine! I’ve got to get the men out of the mine!” he bellowed, jumping up, grabbing for his shirt, and putting it on as he ran in the direction of the mine without a glance back at Eva.

  She lay stunned where he had left her, ravished by the depths of passion which had been aroused and then abruptly abandoned. It was only when the rain began to fall heavily that she dressed and returned to the camp to await the men.

  Trying to anticipate what would need to be done, Eva moved whatever she could under cover. The rain had reached torrential strength by the time the men finally emerged from the mine.

  As had been the case earlier, they were weary and dirty, the latter problem being remedied by the rain, falling fast and steady. Roberto and Paul erected a makeshift tent to stow as much gear as possible out of the rain; the rest was put under the protective shelter of an overhang well in front of the mine entrance. It was under this overhang that, though soaked to the skin already, they took shelter to wait out the storm.

  With all of the frantic activity, Eva had not been able to dwell on the scene that the rain had interrupted. Now, as the idle waiting began, she wrapped her arms around herself in sudden remembrance. How beautiful Roberto had been, so tender and giving. She could have almost imagined that he did love her, so gentle was his lovemaking, although she knew to the contrary. The thought of all that passion lost brought a look of deep sadness to her eyes.

  “Are you cold?” Roberto’s cool voice broke into her reverie, his eyes pointing out her wrapped arms as explanation for his inquiry.

  Eva looked quickly up at him, then down again to the ground, needing time to erase the pain she knew he would see in her eyes. “Ah … no!” She realized she had to think of something to say to change the subject. “Do you think this rain will last long?” she asked, finally able to raise her head. He searched her face with unfathomable eyes before he ventured an answer.

  “It shouldn’t last too long. Torrential downpours don’t usually last too long, but you never can tell.” He peered out at the rain with concern on his face. “I only hope our work hasn’t upset things …”

  “What do you mean? Your digging certainly had nothing to do with the rain!” she countered, tongue-in-cheek.

  He found no humor in her answer. “Of course not! But the danger with rains such as this is a cave-in. Often, over time, the mine shaft collapses at a weak point and the collapsed area itself strengthens the rest of the shaft, leaving one solid section. When we dug a passage to get to the Topaz, we broke through that one solid section; that entire area of the mine may be weakened as a result,” he explained with obvious annoyance, both at the situation and at Eva.


  Tom, who had been standing nearby, broke in, “So there’s absolutely nothing we can do? We just stand here and watch it collapse?”

  Roberto answered him with more control in his voice, Eva noted, than he had shown to her. “It may not collapse. We can’t be sure. But, no, there’s absolutely nothing we can do in either case. We can’t go into the mine now and risk being caught. We can only hope this damned rain will stop soon!” he grunted, looking toward the sky, which was as ominous as ever.

  He seemed to be struggling with himself for not having been better prepared for this occurrence. Voicing his rationale, he explained, “During these summer months it doesn’t rain very often, but when it comes, it really comes! In torrents, as you can see! Actually, there’s nothing we would have been able to do to better deal with the rain. It’s just that we’ve come so close …” He shook his head with worry, having verbalized the unanimous sentiment of the group.

  There was nothing to do but wait. Eva stared out at the rain from beneath the overhang. The torrents had created a waterfall … much like Eva’s own. For that was exactly how she thought of it—as her own waterfall. Ironic that Roberto had said it too: Eve, in the garden of Eden. The temptation was so great there. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to deny Roberto had not the rain begun. The strength of her own desire frightened her almost as much as her loss of conscience in his arms. Yes, she would have indeed bitten from the apple, she feared, but for this other act of nature.

  She felt his eyes on her even before she looked up to find Roberto gazing at her. Their lines of vision locked and held, cemented together by some unknown fiber. It was only a low and ominous rumbling, steadily growing louder and louder, which broke the spell.

  CHAPTER 8

  Eva saw the alarm in Roberto’s eyes even before he raised them to the overhang as it began to crumble.

  “Landslide! Get away from here!” he yelled, alerting the others and grabbing Eva’s hand as he pushed any lingering bodies out from under the overhang. They ran to the opposite side of the camp, horrified, watching the entire overhang as it collapsed into thousands of fragments of wet earth, rock, and grass, a thunderous hail of debris, completely obliterating the protective niche where they had stood short moments before. Mud continued to slide from the hillside high above the plateau on which they had camped, accumulating in huge, water-soaked mounds on top of the gear they had stowed beneath the overhang’s deceitful safety.

  The noise was deafening—a cacophony of rain hitting mud, mud hitting stones, stones hitting stones as they fell. The braying of the donkeys joined the clamor as Carlos and Pierre led them to a safer place further from the hillside.

  Having deposited Eva with a shove at the side of the camp farthest from the danger, Roberto yelled orders above the din to the others, who joined him in the frantic removal to that side of anything that had not yet been buried in the mud slide. They then could do nothing but stand by with Eva, eyes wide in dread at what was taking place before them.

  Suddenly, Tom bolted from the relative safety of their present vantage point and headed for the mine, shouting over his shoulder, “The shovels! A couple of them are just inside the entrance to the mine! We’ll need them if …” His voice was lost in the roar of the rain as it pelted more violently than ever on the mud-caked earth.

  He was too close to the mine entrance to see the tremor of the earth above the mine when it began. Rippling its way down the hillside, from within as well as without, the flooded earth broke loose from its moorings and crashed onto the roof of the mine, demolishing it with one giant explosion of soil, rocks, and timber fragments.

  Roberto barged forward, Paul close behind, just as the final collapse took place. Eva gasped in horror, her eyes witnessing a tangling of arms and legs and mud and stone. The domino action inevitably followed, each of the ribboning indentations, which Roberto had eyed so dubiously the day before, caving in, to be filled by a mélange of displaced earth and uprooted foliage, even as Roberto and Paul managed to pull Tom free of the ongoing havoc.

  The moment of panic seemed infinite, frozen in Eva’s view until she saw Tom weakly struggle to his feet under his own power. She dashed forward to assist, but he was well escorted by Paul and Roberto through the torrents to their observation station.

  Knowing that Tom was all right, the group turned and watched the last of the ruin as it played itself out before their eyes. What had been a mine door, clear and open when they had first arrived yesterday, was now nothing more than a sodden hill under which was buried hours of labor, much of their gear, all of their hopes … and the Espinhaco Topaz.

  The storm continued at full strength for no more than a few minutes before it tapered off to a drizzle and then was done. As Eva shared the vigil with the others, no words were spoken. With the last of the raindrops came an excruciating silence, settling oppressively over the dismal scene. There was nothing to say. The voice of nature had said it all.

  It was almost, reflected Eva, as though some greater force had determined that the Topaz should remain out of the reach of man for another hundred and fifty years. The brunt of the destruction had seemingly been aimed at the mine; once it was sealed, locked away from man’s touch, the torrents had ended. Nature’s fury had been spent.

  As the shock of defeat held them immobile, the clouds slowly dissipated and the sun appeared once again, low in the late-afternoon sky, dancing on the raindrops that lingered on rocks, glistening on the moisture that clung to the foliage, reflecting in the mirrorlike puddles that were virtually everywhere. the sun’s very cheerfulness at having returned to sparkle on the hillside did nothing to ease the depression which the weary adventurers felt.

  Roberto took charge, as always. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up and see where we stand,” he ordered, his tone just barely conveying the disappointment his face so openly wore.

  Eva pitched in with the others, as they unearthed from the top layer of saturated earth the few things that had survived the worst of the landslide. Most of these things either had been destroyed outwardly by the force of the rocks or were so deeply infused with mud and grit that they were beyond use. Several of the knapsacks were among the latter, their contents unusable until they could be properly sorted out and washed.

  Most of the food supply was intact, to everyone’s relief. Not that there was an ounce of appetite among them now, but it was obvious to all that they would need food for the return trip to Terra Vermelho. With the exception of some hopelessly water-logged bread, this would not be a problem.

  The warming rays of the sun began to dry Eva’s wet clothes, although the rummaging through the muck had left a muddy boot from her knees down. The men were in even worse shape, spattered from head to foot, the iron-red hue of the marshy mounds giving the impression of smeared blood. The blood of the earth, Eva bemoaned, as she stood back to watch the last of the salvageable gear being extracted from the still oozing soil.

  The analogy had been too vivid for Eva’s churning stomach. Aware of a sharp wave of nausea, she turned away from the men and escaped to a wet, though clean, rock onto which she sank. Fortunately, several deep breaths controlled the spasm, but she remained as she was, her head lowered on her hands, which in turn rested on her bent knees.

  Then a strong hand was on her neck, massaging it briskly to get the blood circulating again, and Roberto’s soothing voice commanded her, as it had done so often, to relax.

  Eva hadn’t realized how strongly the trembling was shaking her body until the steadiness of his grasp exaggerated it by comparison. She remained where she was, taking deep breaths, until she felt strong enough to raise her head.

  “I’m all right now. Thanks,” she offered in a weak voice without looking at Roberto.

  “Are you sure? This has been pretty harrowing.” His concern touched her, although she knew he considered it his duty as the leader of the expedition to look out for the health, mental and physical, of its members.

  She nodded in his direction. “Y
es. I’m sure. It just hit me all of a sudden. Those mud spatters look so like blood …” Her voice trailed off as she realized that it had been the sight of this bloody hue on Roberto which had disturbed her most. How close they had all come to being crushed in the landslide! But if anything had happened to Roberto, she would have been doubly crushed.

  Now Roberto took her arm, gently but firmly, and led her out of her corner in the direction she knew so well, toward the waterfall. She turned questioning eyes on him, but he had anticipated her reaction and already had a finger before his lips in a sign for her to keep still. In a loud voice he addressed the others, each of whom looked more bedraggled than the next.

  “I suggest that we all wash this grit off before we lose the sun entirely. We look like we’ve been through a bloody battle and I’m afraid it’s making Mrs. Jordenson sick!” He winked at her, a twinkle in his eye, as he proceeded to guide her to the falls.

  She looked at him with astonishment. “How can you make jokes after what just happened?” Incredulity had raised her voice several notes.

  He shrugged his shoulders in resignation as he bent to bathe his arms in the rushing flow of the water. “What would you have me do, Eva? I’m as disappointed —no, more so—than the rest of you. I’ve been looking forward to bringing out the Topaz for a long time.” He paused, a faraway look in his eyes. His voice carried some of his regret when he continued. “I’m glad my old friend from Terra Vermelho didn’t live to see this, after seeing the map pass through his family for years.” He looked up, reminded once again of Eva’s presence. “At least no one was hurt. It’s done, Eva. We tried. Who could ask more?”

  With that, he finished his clean-up and headed back to camp. Eva quickly washed her own arms and hands, then dunked her legs, sneakers and all, in the water, convinced that she’d rather be soaked anew than branded by the treacherous earth-turned-fluid for a few such destructive moments.