Gold Trap

by Lilly Maytree

  “And what’s Miriam?” Meg reached for his coffee and caught a barely detectable expression of satisfaction that came into his eyes. Even the cold coffee was delicious.

  “One of the best private investigators I know. Definitely the best around here.”

  “Then what made you side with the commissioner instead of me when I said Sol Horn was guilty of something about all this? We should have pressed charges right then and there. He would have at least been forced to explain himself.”

  “Megan, you can’t just press kidnapping charges against someone when there’s no proof. Especially, when it didn’t amount to anything more than an inconvenience.”

  “That man is responsible for everything that happened. I’ll bet you anything he even knows where the professor is right now.”

  “We already know where he is. He and Gilbert drove down to Dakar to meet Eddie Campbell, and the three of them flew to Little De Ambe, this morning.”

  “You heard from Gilbert?”

  “Not directly, but I talked to Eddie just before they were due in. Haven’t heard from him since, but he and Pop tend to veer off the path a bit when they get together.”

  “Then, for heaven’s sake, Tom, why didn’t you tell me that instead of letting me rant and rave, and make a fool of myself back at the jail?”

  “You were ranting and raving about everything at that point. You were out of your head, Meg. You were even babbling about cannibals.”

  Her eyes grew wide at the sudden remembrance. “But there really are cannibals! Right here in Ghana! I saw a severed hand, with my own eyes, wrapped up in some kind of…”

  “It wasn’t human. Miriam told me about that.”

  “How would she know?”

  “After the waiter told us you went to the police station, she got ahead of me while I grabbed up our things. Anyway, it was a gorilla hand. Almost as bad, in my opinion.”

  He sighed at her look of skepticism and tried to explain. “They smuggled it down from the highlands for some special occasion or other. It’s a delicacy. But the gorillas are protected now and it’s against the law to kill them. Still, there’s a lot of poaching and illegal traffic going on. But what a shock for you, Meg! At first, they thought that’s why you fainted. Had no idea you’d been trudging through the heat all morning.”

  “It was the last straw! I’ve had quite enough of all of this! Do you hear?”

  Tom got to his feet. “I’ll go get you some dinner. You’ll feel better after you eat something.”

  “I’d rather get dressed and get it myself.”

  “Not on your life. You’re supposed to stay in bed for at least a day. Standard procedure for a mild case of heatstroke in this part of the world.”

  “Will you hand me my bag then, please? I would at least like to call home.”

  “Nope.” He started for the door.

  “Give me one good reason why not!” Her head began to pound, again. “I have more than proven myself, Tom Anderson! And you can hardly expect…”

  “Oh, you’ve proven yourself, all right. But I think one member of the Jennings family”—he opened the door— “is about all I can handle at a time.”

  Meg threw her pillow at him, but it only went halfway across the room and had no effect on his exit. Enough of this, she decided. She was going to call, anyway. Then she would get dressed, and take her complaints to the captain of this vessel. After that she would rent her own stateroom (no matter how much it cost) and get off at the very next port of call. She would rejoin her tour. And if Tom Anderson wanted to get in touch with her again, for any reason, he better have his father along. Alive and well.

  Only she would have to do all that before he got back. Because any physical confrontation between them was decidedly stacked in his favor. Maybe it would be better to find that Nurse Judith person. Every man she had encountered since her arrival had automatically sided with Tom. Meg threw off the sheet and swung her feet onto the floor.

  The room had white walls and wooden floors that looked dark and ancient. A small closet occupied one corner, and in another, a folding bamboo screen that partitioned off the space behind it. Probably a sink and commode. She found her duffel in the closet along with her string bag. But her cell phone was gone. The audacity! Now, who was acting like a common thief?

  It was better than she thought behind the screen. Instead of having to wash in a small basin, there was a short hose and shower nozzle that could be connected to the faucet. One simply stood over a wooden grate and let the water run down into a drain in the floor underneath. There was also a fresh towel hanging nearby. Meg hadn’t had a real shower in nearly four days, and even though the water only had one temperature, lukewarm, it felt wonderful.

  After that, she donned a fresh khaki skirt and green print blouse (that practically matched the shade of her eyes), along with a wide leather belt. She certainly couldn’t go looking for the captain in her pajamas. She still had the towel wrapped around her freshly washed hair, and was just beginning to rub moisturizer over her face when she heard the click of the door. Didn’t even have the decency to knock!

  She kept on with her ablutions and didn’t say a word. Maybe Tom would simply leave a tray and go away. Now that she was on her feet, and quite capable of taking care of herself. By the time she had finished brushing out her hair and using her reading glasses to keep it back from her face, the smell of some delectable stew was more than she could take, and she stepped around the screen. Tom was reading, again, but he looked up as soon as she made an appearance.

  “Feel better, priss?” he asked.

  “Will you please stop calling me that? And you had no right to take my phone.”

  “Let’s talk about it later. Come and eat, first. While it’s still warm.”

  “You don’t have to stay and watch over me, you know. I’m quite…”

  “I like watching over you, Megan. It’s turned into something of a habit.”

  “Well, if you cared anything at all for me…” She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the bowl of…what in the world was that? She reached for her glasses to give it a closer inspection.

  “It’s their specialty here,” Tom answered the inquisitive look. “Sort of a peppery peanut butter stew. In fact, no matter what you order, roast beef and potatoes, chicken, whatever, you end up with that. I ordered you a bowl of clam chowder, if you’re interested.”

  “Clam chowder?”

  “I thought that’s what a descendent of fisher folk might like best.”

  How was it he could be so exasperating one minute and so appealing the next? “I happen to love clam chowder,” she confessed before giving the stew a tentative taste.

  “You were saying?”

  “I say this isn’t half bad, and I’m starved.”

  “Before that. You said if I cared anything at all for you. Of course I care for you, Meg. We wouldn’t have come this far if I didn’t.”

  She stopped eating and cast him a long, thoughtful look. He was going to talk her into something, again. She knew it. He would make it sound so logical she wouldn’t be able to resist. She hadn’t been able to resist anything he had said or done, yet. So, she decided to tell him all of her suspicions, right now. Everything. While he was still in a frame of mind to listen. Because even though he had outmatched her at every turn, she knew, without doubt, that he was also vulnerable to her. Hadn’t he admitted the channels between them ran both ways? There must be some way to tap into them, again. She would try something unexpected. Catch him off-guard. Wasn’t the best defense a good offense?

  Yes, she had sunk even to that, now.

  “See, that’s the point, Tom, you never ask me,” she began. “You just say, this is what we’re going to do, Megan, and then make me do it. You don’t listen to me about anything.”

  “I’m listening, now.”

  “Only because you feel guilty for giving me heatstroke.”

  “Megan, I did not give you heatstroke.” Then he raised h
is hands in response to her look of accusation. “Although I’ll concede that I am responsible for putting you in the position to get it. For which I not only apologize, but also feel very bad about. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

  “But you still don’t trust me enough to even let me call home.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “You haven’t exactly given me a chance to trust you, Tom. You just plow on through and insist on having things your way.”

  “Only because you refuse to do almost everything I tell you.”

  “Most people who disagree on things discuss their differences.” She pointed out. “Or even argue about them, instead of going straight to blows.”

  “Wasn’t me throwing the punches, priss.”

  “Oh, it’s…it’s just that you exasperate me so!” She sighed at the futility of arguing with him and decided to try a more emotional approach. “Besides, you don’t have to. You’re quite capable of overpowering me without resorting to blows. No matter what I think. I’m only on this boat because you literally hauled me aboard like so much baggage. You don’t care what I think!”

  “Of course, I do.”

  But, rather than giving her the upper hand, the sudden look of disappointment the remark had cast over his face sent an arrow straight into her own heart.

  “Meg, why did you run off from me, again?” he implored as if the true root of the thing could no longer be withheld.

  “I told you. When I saw you with…”

  “No, you would have said something about it right then, if that’s all it was. Instead, you ran away from me. Because you couldn’t trust what we talked about all day more than what you saw. Do you actually think I could betray my own father?”

  “Oh, I don’t know what to think, anymore.” Then, like a boomerang, her own emotions began to churn (now, how had that happened?). She suddenly felt miserable she’d let him down in some way. She set her unfinished dinner aside and tried to explain. “The truth is, I feel like you deliberately swept me off my feet today.”

  “Since when is taking pictures on some thorn-infested, insect-ridden hillside, and then marching someone six and a half miles in a tropic heat, an attempt to sweep them off their feet? No woman in her right mind would…”

  Disappointment welled up inside her like a storm about to break. He didn’t even think she was in her right mind! And how had it come to matter so very much what he thought about her, anyway? But it did. Very much so. She sniffed (oh, dear!) and reached into her pocket for a tissue. It was empty.

  “Don’t start that, again, Meg. It tears at my heart when you cry.”

  But she couldn’t help it. How could anybody? “You’re right. I haven’t been in my right mind since I met you! All that talk about Christianity and being a perfect match, called to the same purpose, you said, divinely appointed!” She stood to hunt for a tissue. “Maybe my divine appointment was nothing more than getting in the way of whatever underhanded trick you were trying to pull over on your father!”

  “You know that’s not true.” Tom reached into his pocket then and handed her a folded handkerchief. “But it can go either way from here, Meg. It’s up to you. Look, we’ve been given a wonderful vision, you and I, of what each of us has the possibility to become. But the only way to get there is to have some faith in it. We have to believe the best of each other, no matter what we see. I can’t be your…dashing prince…”

  Meg gasped. Had she actually written that down? She covered her eyes with the handkerchief out of sheer embarrassment.

  “Unless you call me back to that. Over and over, Meg. However long it takes. And you can’t be my perfect, or shall I say…pristine…lady out of the past unless…”

  “Pristine?” She cast a doubtful glance over the top of the handkerchief. “I hardly think you could consider me ‘pure as the driven snow’ after the last few days, no matter what you saw back at that cafe. You read my journal, for heaven’s sake. You know I haven’t remained pure to much more than a single ideal I started out with!”

  “That’s not all it implies. In fact, that phrase is actually a distortion of the true definition of the word. What it really means is, uncorrupted by civilization. Typical of the earliest time or condition. Absolutely… utterly… perfectly…original… Meg. More importantly, it’s what it means to me when I call you that. Except when you’re being so stubborn I can’t even …”

  “Priss, as in prissy, is what you mean most of the time.”

  “That’s why we’ve got to keep calling each other back to our original visions of each other. Don’t you see? Maybe it’s possible to become the perfect someone we each thought we saw. In fact, maybe consciously making an effort to believe in it – against all odds, Meg – is the only way dreams like that can survive.”

  “Tom, you can’t possibly believe I could actually turn into someone like that.”

  “I do. I think maybe everybody could. What if it’s something you have to choose to do? A believe-it-or-not type thing.”

  “What an incredible idea that would be. I’ve never heard anything like it. And wouldn’t it put quite the different twist on things if it really was all up to us.”

  “If it is, I choose you, priss.” Then he announced more emphatically, “I choose to believe that’s the real you.”

  It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. It touched Meg right down to the very depths of her being. And to think he could say something like that after the way she had treated him over the last two days, or even the last few minutes, seemed nothing short of amazing. No one had ever seen anything beyond ordinary in her, not in her entire life.

  “But suppose it’s impossible, Tom? Think how disappointing to reach for the moon when you can’t even touch the trees most of the time. It would…”

  “So much better than where we are now, though,” he finished the sentence for her. “No matter how far we got with it. The very act of trying would have an effect. It would be like stepping stones across a river, Meg. Glory to glory all the way.”

  Her eyes welled up and spilled over, again, at such a beautiful thought (she couldn’t help it; she cried as much at beauty as she did at sadness), but she inwardly chided herself that every emotion she possessed seemed so intensified beneath his gaze. As if she had no control over sharing her deepest feelings with him.

  “So, come back to me, priss.” He entreated. “Just like you were in the cafe. If you don’t, we might never reach the places and things we were truly made for. Neither one of us. Look…”

  He put a hand on her arm and coaxed her toward him. “Just finding each other in this crazy world was a gift, an incredible gift! It shows God must have a little bit of faith in us, too. Don’t you think? Enough to give us a divine vision of each other. And a divine appointment just to catch it. We don’t dare waste it, dearest, otherwise…”

  He pulled her onto his lap and took the handkerchief she was crying into. “Otherwise we’ll just turn into a couple of”—he gently wiped the tears away—”eccentric, old, lonely nincompoops!”

  Meg could no more resist those soothing words than she could deny her own name. Instead, she put appreciative arms around his neck and declared with the most heartfelt sincerity, “I’ll never doubt it, again!”

  In turn, he circled her in that strong embrace that had once felt so confining, and simply held her for a few moments. Which, this time, surprisingly, gave her a most wonderful sense of security and well-being. Then he ran a hand through her still damp hair and kissed the side of her face so softly it sent a ripple of sensations all through her. “Promise you won’t run away from me anymore, Meg.” It was barely more than a whisper into her ear. “No matter what happens.”

  “I…”

  A sudden loud rap against the metal door interrupted her reply. “Message for you, sah!” A man’s voice called out from the other side, and the noisy banging sounded, again.

  “Oh…” Meg tried to pull away from him to answer it.

  To
m held her tighter instead of letting go, and insisted, “Promise.”

  Gold Trap

  17

  Dark Prince

  “T hat gentleman is exceedingly amiable and charming…handsome, exuberant, and energetic. He shows me…with a gracious enthusiasm…all manner of things.”

  Mary Kingsley

  “I promise I won’t run away,” said Meg.

  As if satisfied, he rose, lifting her with him, and then reluctantly set her down to head for the door and answer it, himself.

  “The captain shall see you on the bridge, sah!” echoed a voice from the companionway but Meg could not see past Tom to connect it with a face.

  “I’ll be right there.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a bill of foreign currency that he handed over, and then shut the door again. He turned back to Meg.

  “Probably just a message from my crew saying they’ve landed in Accra,” he explained. “But I’ll have to go up there and make some arrangements for a reply. Shouldn’t take too long. Go back to bed, though, will you, Meg? Nurse’s orders. She said she’d look in on you later. Meantime, just bang on the wall if you need anything. I’m only in the next cabin over.”

  “But, Tom, I feel much better. Why can’t I just come with…”

  “Nurse’s orders,” he repeated. “Besides, I’ve already had to listen to her about bringing you here like that in the first place. Judith and I go way back. Now, listen, priss, I have a plan. So, I’ll pick you up first thing in the morning for breakfast and we can discuss it.”

  “What sort of plan?”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “I won’t sleep a wink wondering what it is.” She began arguing, again. “So you might as well…”

  He put a hand under her chin to tilt her face up and stopped the flow of words with a kiss. Not a demanding kiss: it was a very tender and affectionate one. But its effect on Meg was immediate. All manner of emotions welled up from the very depths of her being that she could barely keep from bubbling to the surface. As it was, she reached up to put her arms around his neck, again, in search of that place where, only moments before, she had felt so wonderfully cherished and secure. Except this time, he caught her against him, and lifted her right off the floor.