Another round of gunfire peppered the room. “Sure, Nick, whatever you say. Wasn’t that always the case with us. You gave the orders and I followed.”
“Come on, Josh. You know that wasn’t how it was. We were friends.”
“Except you were the captain, Nick. You were the one who gave the orders. You were the one the men looked up to and followed. You were the one who got the glory.”
Nicholas’s mind raced. If only he knew what kind of gun Josh had, he could calculate how many bullets were left. Unfortunately he had no way of knowing if the shots that had already been fired had been heard at the hotel. Chances were they hadn’t been. He had to keep Josh talking until he could think of a way to divert him.
“Josh, you have no idea how glad I am that you’re alive.”
“Now, why don’t I believe that? Over the years I’ve kept track of you, Nick, old friend, because I knew I’d be coming for you one of these days.” A hollowness undermined his laughter. “You know you cost me a lot of money. When you escaped the trap that had been set for you, the people I had been dealing with cut the money that they were going to give me exactly in half.”
Nicholas heard a shakiness in Josh’s voice that hadn’t been there a minute ago. “There was no reason to set Mandarin and me up for money, Josh. We were all making plenty of money.”
“But it wasn’t mine, damn you! I wanted money of my own! And the Chinese offered me more money than I had ever dreamed of. Even when they gave me only half, the money they deposited into my bank account every month was enough to buy me the best opium. But when Mandarin escaped, the money stopped coming.” A thready sound underlined with desperation erupted from him. “No more money, no more dope. You can see it, can’t you Nick? I’ve got to have the dope.”
“Let me help you. Josh. I can—”
“Help me! That’s rich. You won’t even come out from behind that damned couch.”
“I will if you put the gun down.”
“No chance. Besides, we’re about to have a visitor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mandarin, of course. I left a note at the desk for her with instructions for your night manager to call her at this time and read it to her. The note says that I’m alive, at your house, and anxious to see her. What do you bet she’ll come running?”
Nicholas silently cursed. “Don’t you think that Mandarin has suffered enough, Josh?”
“Suffered! Try doing without dope when your system has had a steady supply for ten years. Then see if your concept of suffering doesn’t change.”
“You’re ill—”
“Stand up, Nick. I promise I won’t kill you until Mandarin gets here.”
Sydney grabbed the sleeve of Nicholas’s jacket and whispered, “Don’t do it.”
“Come on, Nick. I meant what I said. I won’t shoot you, not until Mandarin gets here. I wouldn’t deprive myself of the pleasure of seeing my two best friends together after all these years.” With that, he went off into a peal of laughter.
Nicholas bent down so that he could speak into Sydney’s ear. “I have to stand up. If I can see him, maybe I can think of some way to get that gun away from him.”
“No!”
He kissed her temple. “Don’t worry. I’ll be all right. Stay put. Under no circumstances move.”
Slowly Nicholas stood up, and as he did, Josh stepped out of the shadows. “Josh!” He couldn’t help the exclamation at the sight of his friend, he was so shocked. Josh’s physical condition had deteriorated severely since Nicholas had last seen him. Josh’s frame was skeletal, and his eyes glowed hotly with a wildness that came from a deranged mind. His heart clenched with anguish as he remembered how Josh had once been.
Josh appeared amused at his reaction. “Time has been good to you, Nick. All of us should be so lucky. Right?”
“Josh, let me get you some help.”
“Didn’t you understand me? You are going to help me. When I kill you and Mandarin, the Chinese will start giving me the money again.”
“Do you honestly think you can trust them?” As he talked, Nicholas moved slowly around to the front of the couch, careful not to startle Josh.
Josh followed Nicholas’s movement with his gun, and when his hand began to tighten around the butt to the point that the gun began to waver dangerously, Nicholas stopped.
“They want you bad, Nick. You should be flattered at the amount of money they’re willing to pay for you.”
“Josh—” The sound of a Jeep had both men looking at the door. Mandarin. If only there were some way he could warn her.
Nicholas quickly gauged the short distance between the two of them, then dove forward onto the floor and began rolling very fast toward Josh. Josh fired wildly. Mandarin burst through the door just as Nicholas’s body thudded against Josh’s legs, knocking Josh backward. Following him down, Nicholas threw his body over Josh’s and grabbed the gun.
“Don’t hurt him!” Mandarin yelled.
Nicholas pushed the gun across the room. Josh fought, but his body was so wasted, he soon tired. Nicholas waited until he was sure Josh had stopped fighting, then stood up.
Curling his body into a tight ball, Josh began to cry.
Mandarin sank to the floor beside him. Her black hair, loose and long to her hips, fanned around her body as she bent and tried to take him into her arms, but he pushed her away.
“Don’t touch me!”
Mandarin looked up at Nicholas with tears in her eyes. “Will he be all right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe with the right help he will be.”
Mandarin reached out to Josh again and gently stroked her fingers through his hair. “He will be. I know he will be.”
Sydney stood and wrapped her arms around herself. The events of the last few minutes had left her shaking badly. Her gaze was locked on the scene in front of her. For the first time since she had known him, Nicholas’s shoulders were slumped, as if they carried too much weight. And Mandarin sat beside the man she loved, chanting to herself and to Josh, “Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right,” as if saying it would make it so.
Nicholas and Mandarin’s sorrow and their love for Josh filled the room, and Sydney felt as if she had no place there. Quietly she walked over to Nicholas. “I think I’ll go back to the hotel.”
Nicholas felt as if his mind had been split in two. One half was on his past and the scene in front of him—Josh and Mandarin, the lost years, the pain. In the last half hour he had experienced more fear and vulnerability than he had in his entire life. And as a result, his emotions were frayed to the point that he was afraid they might come unraveled at any moment.
The other half of his mind was on Sydney. She was his present. He needed her. The alien thought sounded in his head with an ear-splitting intensity. Sydney could hold him together and make him whole. He wanted her by his side always. He wanted her to be his future; he wanted to be hers.
He had been right. With her, night could be turned into day and pain could be forgotten.
He loved her. But the words wouldn’t come. They were too new to him... too awkward... He needed time to figure out how to say them.
He patted the hand she had placed on his arm. “Maybe that would be best. I have to make arrangements for Josh. You go on. I’ll see you later.”
Sydney nodded, but unable to leave him so abruptly, she raised up on her tiptoes and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Good-bye, Nicholas.”
More than the word good-bye, Nicholas heard the tone of her voice. So this was it then. There would be no time to figure out the words. Sydney was leaving him for good.
* * *
The noonday sun was directly overhead in a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at it. Sydney sat by the bank of the turquoise lagoon and watched the black swans as they swam serenely among the rushes. She had come to say good-bye to them. Tonight they would be back on the wild side of the island with Nicholas. But she couldn’t be. She had rung h
er sisters this morning, told them that her goal had been achieved, and made plans to meet them.
Small lorikeets wheeled through the trees above her head in colors of green, gold, blue, and red, attempting to charm her. But her heart was heavy. By late afternoon she would be on the launch, heading away from the tropical beauty of the Isle of Charron and the mysterious, exotic man who owned it. She would never return, but her heart would always be here.
She had learned much since she had been here, the most important thing being how powerful love could be. Mandarin had been to hell and back, yet she was still in love with the man who had sent her there. A few short weeks ago Sydney wouldn’t have understood that type of love. Now she did. Because she felt the same type of love for Nicholas. Drawing her knees up, she lay her head on top of them.
“Sydney?”
She tensed, not believing what she was hearing.
“Sydney.”
Slowly she raised her head to find the man she had just been thinking about standing beside her. She stared with disbelief. “Nicholas! What are you going here? It’s daylight. The sun is shining.”
He dropped down beside her. “So it is.”
“But you never come out when the sun is shining! Why now?”
“It’s simple. I finally have a reason.” He reached out and touched her hair. “You know, I think your hair is actually redder in the sunlight.”
“Nicholas, why are you here?”
“Because of you. When you said good-bye back at the house, I knew you were going to leave, but I had to make arrangements for Josh. So I called Mike. I’m sorry, Sydney, but if you had tried to leave the island before I saw you, you wouldn’t have been able to. I wanted to talk to you first.”
Her heart thudded painfully. “Talk to me? But it’s over, Nicholas.”
“It’s over?” His eyes held uncertainty. “You mean you’ve grown tired of me?”
She hastened to reassure him. “No. That’s not what I mean at all! I mean, I didn’t think that you would want me to stay. You’ve never said—”
“I know, I know.” He looked at her, then took her face into his hands. “Sydney, I want to try to explain if I can. It all seems so complicated and yet it’s really very simple. I saw you and wanted you with a suddenness that surprised even me. And because I’ve always been a man who gets what he wants, I never doubted the outcome. But I hadn’t reckoned with you.
“You came to me and gave me your innocence. I had never been given innocence before, in any form. And you gave me your love without asking for anything in return. No one had ever come close to giving me such a gift and with no strings.” Nicholas paused, struggling to express himself. He knew that his words were coming out stilted, but he had too much to lose if he stopped. “Innocence, love, and beauty—weapons difficult to fight against, even for a man such as I.
“You broke the chains of my darkness, and for the first time in over a decade, I’ve been able to step into the open and into the sunlight.”
Tears of joy filled her eyes, but she was afraid to read too much into what he was saying. It seems we each had our own chains,” she murmured. “You broke the chains of my stammer.”
He wiped an errant tear from her cheek and smiled tenderly. “Only for you, Sydney, would I have been tempted into the sunlight. And it took a jolt to make me see the truth. I realized I was going to lose you, and I panicked. My distraction could have gotten us killed, except for your quick thinking. You saved my life, and in the East they say that if you save a life, that life is yours. I love you, Sydney. My life is yours.”
Sydney wasn’t sure her heart would be able to hold all the happiness she was feeling. “I’d rather share your life, Nicholas, and I want you to share mine. We have the world before us, and we have each other. I want to take you to Killaroo so that you can learn to love it as much as I do. And I want you to meet my father so you’ll understand why Manda, Addie, and I were willing to risk so much in order for him to fulfill his heart’s desire and reclaim the Killaroo land he had lost. Which reminds me, tomorrow let’s go to Melbourne and cheer Addie on.”
“That’s fine with me.” Gently he lowered her to the ground and followed her down. “But tonight I want you exclusively to myself, in my bed, under the stars, on the wild side of the island.”
She laughed happily and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’ll always have me, Nicholas.”
“I need you, Sydney,” he whispered. “I love you. Marry me, and together we’ll spend the rest of our lives in the sunlight.”
Epilogue
Killara at sunset—there was no place in the world she would rather be, Cara Delaney mused as she stood on the roof of the keep of the homestead and gazed across the valley to the far distant mountains. The sunset had turned the wide sky above the valley into a living painting of brilliant colors: crimson and gold. magenta and vermilion. As always, the scene took Cara’s breath away, and she never tired of watching it.
A wind swept across the valley and picked up the hem of her topaz silk dinner dress. The skirt, made up of yards and yards of tiny pleats, lifted and billowed in the air, the topaz color shimmering like the rays of the sun.
In utter Joy Cara raised her arms and began to swirl and dance around the keep, breathing in the crystal-clear air.
To the man watching, she was the epitome of beauty—a whirl of silver hair, topaz silk, and golden limbs. She twirled and she twirled, right into the arms of her husband.
“I knew I would find you up here,” Burke murmured, closing his arms possessively around her.
Flushed and breathless, she laughed. “And I knew you would come and find me.”
“Of course. I always will.”
Cara twined her silken arms around her husband’s neck and threw back her head. “Oh, Burke, before I met you I never knew there could be such happiness.” Suddenly she danced out of his arms. “Burke! Let’s go for a ride before dinner. Please?”
Burke smiled his consent. Quicksilver. Cara would always be his quicksilver girl.
The hooves of the two powerful Arabians, Shalimar and Sheikh, thundered over the ground as Cara and Burke raced across the valley toward the setting sun. They had chased the setting sun together countless times, yet it was always new and exhilarating to them.
The sun continued its descent, the colors in the sky above them changed, and after a time they reined in the Arabians to a walk.
“I heard from Cougar today.” Burke said.
Cara grinned. “And I heard from Bridget. They just refuse to take their retirement seriously, don’t they?”
“You’re right about that. Cougar was calling about a new security system he’s devised, in his spare time, he said.”
“Bridget was calling to check up on Mrs. Copeland. She said, ‘Ach! That Esther Copeland is a good enough housekeeper. I suppose, but I just know that she could do with a little supervision every so often, now, don’t I?’ ”
Burke’s green eyes sparkled with laughter and matched the brilliance of the Delaney emerald he wore on his hand. “Do you suppose the two of them are worried that we’ll find out that we can do without them?”
“That’s exactly what I think. Let’s invite them for a visit next week. I Just love to see the two of them together. They’re so sweet.”
“I’m sure they’d be mortified to hear you say so.”
“Well, they are. I love the way Bridget fusses over Cougar. catering to his every whim. And the way he can make her blush just by looking at her is marvelous.”
“I agree.”
“Oh, I forgot something!” Cara reached for her husband’s hand, and they both drew their horses to a standstill. “I’ve got some news I’ve been saving to tell you.”
Hope leaped Into Burke’s dark green eyes. and a tender smile curved Cara’s lips. “No, I’m not pregnant yet. But I know I will be soon. I can feel it. This time next year I’m willing to bet that well have a baby in the nursery of Killara.”
Burke reached for her
, lifted her off Shalimar, and settled her across his lap. braced between the pommel and his stomach, as if she were riding sidesaddle. “I can’t stand it when you’re so far away from me.”
“Neither can L” She rested her head against his shoulder as Burke reined Sheikh around and headed him back to Killara. Shalimar followed. “Burke, you do want a baby, don’t you?”
“Why would you doubt it?” He sounded amazed.
“I guess because you never talk about it.”
“That’s because I’ve been very conscious about not tying you down, Cara. If I had my way, I’d probably lock you in the keep so that I could have you all to myself, but before we were married, you were accustomed to an extraordinary amount of freedom.”
She gazed up at him, wanting to see his face. “Freedom is loving you. Burke. Don’t you know that by now? I freely chose to love you and I’ve never regretted it for a moment. I’m only truly happy when I’m with you, and a baby would only add more joy to our lives.”
“Oh, Cara, I love you so much more than I ever thought possible.” His lips closed on hers for a gentle kiss. Cara sighed and twisted to get closer to Burke. The kiss continued and deepened as under the wide. darkening sky they headed home.
Later, at the dinner table. Burke said, “You never did tell me your news.”
Cara dropped her fork in astonishment. “I can’t believe that I didn’t tell you! And this news is important too! You shouldn’t sidetrack me like that!”
Somehow Burke managed to look innocent. “All I did was kiss you.”
Cara tried to frown, but didn’t quite pull it off. “Never mind.”
“Well? What’s the news?”
“Maggie called today from Shamrock with the most fantastic story about three sisters. You’re going to be amazed when you hear.” Cara’s face lighted with a sudden thought. “Burke. I have an idea!”
“You can have anything you want. but let’s wait until tomorrow.” Burke murmured.
“Burke. let’s go to Australia....”
The End
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Sydney, the Temptress (The Delaneys of Killaroo) Page 14
