by Jill Barnett
“Sam?” she whispered.
Four . . . five . . .
“Sam?”
He took a deep breath and pulled back, letting her slide back down the wall. With his hands still pressed to the wall he looked down at her. Her look was puzzled; then she followed his gaze to her naked chest and quickly pulled up her shirt. Embarrassment flooded her face, and he pushed away from the wall before he did something stupid like ramming his fist through it.
Turning away, he raked the fingers of one hand through his hair and tried to think of something to say. When nothing came to mind he said, “I’d better go.”
He crossed to the door as fast as he could. The broken lock stopped him. He turned, forced to look at her again. She stood stock still, her white-knuckled hands clutching her shirt closed. All the color was drained from her face, and her eyes were wide and stunned and hurt.
“Put that chair under the doorknob after I leave.”
“But—”
“For your own damn good. Shut up and do it!” He closed the door behind him, hard enough to rattle the jamb, but not hard enough to wipe out the horror of what had almost happened.
The real horror was that he wanted it to happen. He, Sam Forester—the bastard kid who had beaten the odds and escaped the slums of Chicago, lived through blazing war on four continents, survived enough barrages of gunfire to make Swiss cheese of most men, even made it through the loss of an eye—had just been brought to his knees by a little blond from South Carolina who was longer on drawl than brains.
He needed a drink, a good strong drink.
After taking his bungalow steps two at a time, he blasted through the door, kicked it closed, and headed for the bottle on the table. He wrenched out the cork, tossed it over his shoulder, and swilled down a few burning gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his shaking hand, he walked over to his cot, then reached over and turned down the wick on the kerosene lamp and sat, staring at nothing in the darkness of the room.
He took another drink, wondering if such a hard life could make a man weak-minded enough to fall for a blond twit with the name of a hootchy-kootchy dancer from the Club Paris.
He wondered what the hell was wrong with him. There’d been women in his life. A man couldn’t reach thirty-three, having lived as he had, without there having been plenty of women. Not as many as Cassidy, but Sam doubted many men could have had that many women and lived. He’d had his share of experienced women who never asked for more than what he was willing to give—sex, good, hard, long sex.
Jesus Christ. He stared open-mouthed at the opposite wall, having just had an awful thought. She was probably a virgin. A goddamn virgin. He took another drink, coughed, and lay back on the cot with a groan. He was in deep shit. That stupid bird was right. He needed a shovel to dig himself out of this one. But for tonight, he’d use the bottle instead, drowning himself in whiskey until he didn’t see those innocent ice blue eyes staring back at him in the dark.
Lollie lay on her cot staring at the dark room. Every so often her pensive gaze would return to the door where that green chair was wedged under the knob. Part of her wished she’d see the doorknob turn, wished Sam would come back, and part of her wished she were home in her room at Hickory House with everything she knew.
What had happened tonight was nothing she’d known before, never. She lay there, alone on her cot, staring at the dark ceiling and remembering Sam’s mouth on hers, the way he tasted. To remind herself it had been real, she ran her fingers lightly over her lips. They felt swollen. She licked them, and they stung a little. Like her pride. It, too, was stinging from the way he’d left her, the way he’d looked at her before he ordered her to keep the chair there, as if he were angry with her.
She sighed, remembering how she’d all but asked him to kiss her. She groaned and flung an arm over her eyes. She’d gone and done it again, done something that angered him.
Admittedly she had said something in the hope that he would kiss her. Some evil little devil within her had wanted him to, wanted to test the difference between the one chaste smooch she’d had at fourteen, Jim Cassidy’s advance, and Sam.
Sam won.
Never in all her born days had she felt what Sam made her feel. There was that old phrase she’d always heard about a woman who was in love. It was said she acted as if he had hung the moon and the stars. Now she understood.
Her eyes drifted closed at the memory of him touching her, holding her, kissing her, of the hard weight of his chest against hers, his hands spanning her waist, his fingers tunneling through her hair to pull it free and hold her mouth against his. She could still taste him, and if she breathed very deeply, she could still smell the scent of him on her clothes and her skin.
She didn’t know that such things could be between men and women. At school she’d heard some talk, and she knew there was something men and women did after marriage. But it had sounded strange, and it was a sin to do that before marriage.
She pulled a blanket up around her, hugging it because she needed to hold something. The thought crossed her mind that maybe what she’d done with Sam was that sin, the privileges that a woman didn’t give a man until they were married. She pondered that thought long and hard. Finally she turned onto her side, having come to a sure conclusion. Anything that felt that good couldn’t possibly be sinful.
Chapter 18
Lollie closed the perimeter gate and walked toward the empty hutches. She counted them. Eight. That was what she’d thought. There had been eight birds, and she’d found only five. Also, she needed a way to capture them since all but two were still apprehensive and skittish whenever she fed them. Somehow she’d have to search out those other birds.
She bit back a yawn, then stared at the cages. But not today, she thought. She’d already spent hours out there in the thick jungle, fending off a cloud of mosquitoes while trying to corral those birds. The bugs had swarmed around her like sugar ants to honey, probably because the humidity had increased so. It was hot, wet, and sticky, and so was she, not to mention itchy, dirty, and plumb tired.
Last night had been another night of tossing and turning, and the sleeplessness was taking its toll. She rolled her shoulders to work out the kinks, the result of sleeping on that cot and staying hunched over to try to coax those wild cocks out from under the bushes. She rammed her rolled shirtsleeves up past her elbows and scratched the bites on her forearms while she headed back toward her bungalow.
By the time she reached the steps her arms and neck were a mass of itchy red bumps that she hoped a wet cloth would soothe. Shoving open the door, she hurried inside and twisted the lock, which Gomez had repaired the day before. It kept sticking, but he hadn’t bothered to speak to her, let alone ask her if the lock was okay. She didn’t feel up to suffering that glaring silence again. When she had fixed everything and made up to the men for her mistake, then maybe she’d tell them about the lock. Until then she’d keep to herself.
She used both hands to ram the bolt into place, then rubbed her bloodless fingers as she crossed to the water bucket she used for washing. A small oval mirror speckled with age and without a frame hung from the wall on a piece of bent wire. Directly below was a spindly and splintered wooden chest with three broken drawers and a varnish finish that had cracked orange with age. The legs of the chest were mismatched, and the whole thing rocked whenever she placed anything on it.
She lugged the bucket over and set it on top of the chest, which, true to form, wobbled like a drunken duck for a few water-sloshing seconds. She plunged a rag into the water, wrung it out with a few jerky twists, and plastered the damp cloth onto the throbbing welts on her itchy neck.
Ooooh. It was pure heaven. She closed her eyes and stuck her forearms into the water bucket, elbow high, letting the cool water soothe the itching. Relief was almost immediate. She removed her arms, peeled away the rag, and dropped it into the bucket while she fought with the metal buttons on her shirt. They were too big for the buttonholes, and it took a go
od five minutes to unfasten them.
She slid her arms from the sleeves, letting the shirt dangle down behind the waist of her tightly belted pants.
Wrung-out rag in hand, she moved her gaping undershirt aside and ran the rag over her shoulders, neck, and chest, letting the cool water slop all over her upper body. It felt wonderful. Humming, she grabbed the large yellowish ball of greasy soap and scoured it across the cloth. The soap ball slipped from her hands, fell to the floor, and rolled under the table.
Rats! She tossed the rag near the bucket and bent to get the soap, stepping back so she could better see under the chest. Upside down, with her hair grazing the floor, she extended her hand, feeling around for the soap ball. All she could feel was hard, dusty wooden floor. She took one more step back and moved her head closer, squinting while her hand still searched for the soap.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of black speeding by. Her hand froze. Breath held and without moving her head she looked left, then right, then left. Nothing moved. She peered up at Medusa’s perch, thinking for an instant that maybe the mynah had flown back inside. The perch stood empty.
“Medusa.” She straightened and looked around the room. The bird wasn’t there. She frowned, shrugged, and moved toward the chest.
The black flash scurried by again.
Her breath caught. Whatever it was, it was bigger than her hand—the same size as . . .
“Oh, my Gawd! A tarantula!” She flew toward the cot, her booted feet barely touching the floor before she leapt up on the cot, her heart beating in her throat, chills racing down her arms. She fumbled with her shirt, shoving her arms through the sleeves, then hugging herself as she scanned the floor, trying to see the horrid thing, her breath heaving in fear-driven pants that rasped through the room.
She edged up the cot, still scanning the area, waiting, knowing the huge spider was gonna leap onto the cot any minute. Her fanny hit the wall. The deadly black thing crept over the left edge of the cot.
It was stalking her! She whimpered and moved back just as it crawled over the rim of the cot.
Screaming so loud her hair hurt, she took a flying jump off the cot and bounded across the floor. She had to make the door. She had to. Had to!
Her hand hit cool metal of the lock. She twisted it with a hard, panicked yank. It stuck. She fumbled, knowing that at any second the awful thing was gonna jump on her. She knew she’d feel it.
Oh, Gawd!
The lock clicked. She wrenched open the door, catapulted out, and slammed it hard, sagging back against the door, her breath heaving, her heart pounding, tears running like rain down her hot cheeks.
Fighting for control, she let her head drop, rubbing a hand over her face before she opened her eyes and focused on the bottom of the door. A little bit of black appeared from beneath the door.
It was scrunching itself under . . . Oh, my Gawd! She jumped back and the horrid black thing moved out from under the door. Her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. She screamed until her throat was dry and then bolted forward.
Sam’s chest stopped her.
“What the hell’s going on?” He staggered back a step, clamping his arms around her, because she’d hit him with such force.
Her feet didn’t stop moving until she’d almost climbed up his chest. She tightened her arms around him. “It’s another tarantula! Oh, Gawd, oh, Gawd, get it, please, please!” She buried her nose in his neck and squeezed her arms tighter.
He grunted, and she felt him looking over her shoulder before he said, “Where is it?”
“Behind me. It’s coming out from under the door.” She answered into his neck, unable to bear to look at it again.
She couldn’t stop shaking, but her fear had seemed to dissipate the minute she hit Sam’s chest.
Suddenly his shoulders and chest began to shake, slowly at first, then growing stronger and harder. If Sam was shaking, the spider must really be huge and awful, she thought, trying to “ignore the chills that ran through her.
“Do you see it?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah, biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
“Get rid of it, please.”
“I’m not sure I can kill it . . . alone.”
“Ohhhh,” she moaned in horror, waiting. When he didn’t make any move or say anything, she asked, “Can’t you shoot it?”
“I doubt it would do any good.”
“Try, please try! I can’t stand it.”
“A gun won’t kill it.”
“Don’t you have any really big bullets?”
His shoulders shook again. “Bullets won’t stop this one.
The image his words conjured up, that of a thick, black, leathery-tough skin beneath the spider’s plump hairy body, was enough to make her shake all over again. “Is its skin really that thick?”
“No, but your head is.”
She tore her face away from his neck and stared into his sardonic face. Peering over her shoulder she looked down. A big black wad of tangled thread lay harmlessly on the wooden porch. Her embarrassed gaze followed the one long black thread that was stuck to the sticky rubber on the sole of her boot.
Medusa must have gotten hold of a full spool of thread. Lollie let go of Sam’s neck and slid down his chest, not knowing whether to run inside and slam the door, burst into tears, or shrivel up and die right there.
Worse yet, Jim Cassidy and a group of soldiers stood a few feet away, apparently being completely entertained by her foolishness.
“You were right. She is flat chested,” Jim said and suddenly a whole round of male laughter filled the air.
She looked down, remembering her undone shirt. It gaped open, her wet undershirt plastered to her chest and protecting nothing from the eyes of the whole male group. She gripped the shirtfront closed in her tight fists and tried not to cry, which was what she wanted to do. Instead she acted as if she still had some dignity left by lifting her chin a notch before she spun around to take her flat chest inside. She got as far as the door, with its jammed lock.
One hand clutching her shirt closed, she twisted the blasted lock as hard as she could. It didn’t budge, and she was so frustrated, so near the edge that her tears just burst forth—a final humiliation. She couldn’t even make a grand exit. She let her forehead rest against the wood splintered door and cried as quietly as she could.
“Jim, take the men and keep them busy somewhere else.” Sam’s deep voice came from behind her.
At his words, she cried even harder. Then she could feel him standing behind her. His big hand closed over hers on the doorknob and turned. The stupid door clicked open as if it always worked perfectly. She took a deep breath and tried to pull her hand away, but he held fast. She refused to look at him. She just wasn’t that strong, and couldn’t bear to see the droll look in his eye. It hurt to be the brunt of a joke, to be laughed at and never taken seriously.
For some strange reason this man could see right inside her, and she felt too wounded to let anyone see that open, vulnerable side of her. It was just too personal to reveal, especially to a man. None of her brothers could understand and they loved her, so she doubted someone like Sam could.
And yet a part of her wanted Sam to take her seriously, to like her. She wanted his respect, and she didn’t know why. Maybe she wanted it because she had a strong feeling that respect was something he didn’t give often. If Sam Forester respected a person, then that respect was something to cherish.
She stepped through the open door and he followed her inside. She took a deep breath and the heaving from her quiet tears sounded louder than a scream. He pulled her into his arms. The second she hit his chest she started crying all over again.
“It’s not easy out in the real world, is it, Lollipop?” His hands drifted over her back.
“No,” she whispered.
They stood there, neither of them speaking, the only sound in the room an o
ccasional sniffle. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“It really looked like a spider,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” His voice choked a little, and then he took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to laugh at you, but it was funny.”
She thought about how she must have looked, screaming the place down and running as if she were tearing up the pea patch, all because of a wad of tangled black thread. It was pretty silly, and now, with Sam’s arms around her, it wasn’t quite so embarrassing. She smiled a little, imagining her eyes filled with horror and reliving the way she’d been jumping all over the room like a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad.
The inklings of a giggle escaped her lips. “I guess I did look pretty silly.”
“Yeah, you did.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. “You could play the gentleman and deny it, you know, out of respect for my sensibilities.”
His face grew serious, and his gaze moved to her mouth. “Don’t ever forget that I’m no gentleman, Lollie, and if I cared about your sensibilities, I wouldn’t do this.”
His mouth came down on hers so fast she couldn’t get a breath, but she didn’t care, because his tongue filled her mouth, stroked, and retreated, only to plunge back inside as if unable to stop. It was just as it had been before, and it felt so wonderful she like to died. Thank Gawd you’re no gentleman, Sam Forester.
She stood on her toes, trying to wrap her arms farther around his neck. He moved his left hand from her waist to the back of her head, held it in his palm, and lifted her completely off the floor as he walked her to the cot. He sat down and pulled her across his lap, kissing all thought from her.
Over and over his mouth ate at hers, and a hand slid inside her open shirt and toyed with the tip of her breast through her wet undershirt. She groaned against his tongue, and he slid the undershirt aside and exposed her breast. In an instant he left her mouth and drew on her breast until half of it was in his open, warm, wet mouth.
