“Exactly Who Or What Are You, Ross St. Clair?”
His eyes became hooded. “I’m a man. Just a man.”
Diana didn’t believe him for a second. “A man who accosts a complete stranger in the airport and claims she’s in some kind of danger?”
He went very still. “Give me ten minutes. That’s all I ask. If you don’t believe me then, at least I can say I tried. At least my conscience will be clear.”
She had to admit she was surprised by his outburst. She was also intensely aware of him, of the long lines of his thighs so near to her own beneath the intimate table for two.
She left an eloquent pause, then glanced down at the elegant gold watch on her wrist. “Ten minutes? You’d better start talking, Mr. St. Clair. You’re down to nine and a half.”
Not His Wedding!
by
Suzanne Simms
Copyright © 1992 by Suzanne Simmons Guntrum, All rights reserved.
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
About the Author
One
Weddings were a damn waste of time.
He knew. He’d attended one too many in his life. Crowds of gawking spectators, thousands of dollars thrown away on frilly dresses and fancy tuxedos, the cloying scent of hothouse flowers, mounds of food and an endless river of drink: it was all a damn waste.
From his experience, half the couples never made it past the honeymoon stage, anyway. One taste of reality and she went running home to Mommy and Daddy, and he to the nearest singles bar.
Weddings, bah humbug.
Still, this one was different, Ross had to admit. Santo Tomas was a small, humble village, and the couple seemed genuinely devoted to each other. And he was, after all, the guest of honor.
The guest of honor. God knew why, he thought, shaking his head. Anyone could have shown these people how to dig a new well. But he knew it wasn’t true. It took somebody with know-how, and he was, apparently, that somebody.
The local padre finished gesticulating over the bride and groom. He had performed the wedding mass in the dialect of the region, of which there were literally hundreds in these islands, and concluded in Spanish: “IDios le bendiga!”
Everyone from Santo Tomas had crowded into the small church for the ceremony. With the bendición they all streamed around the young couple and, along with a flower-decked pagoda containing an image of the village’s patron saint, paraded them out into the town square.
It wasn’t much of a town square.
The fishing barrio was primarily raised houses of split rattan, sawali, with thatched roofs, situated along a muddy brown river that had no name. At least this area didn’t have the swamp rats that made life on the frontier in Cotabato so hazardous, and the crocodile, once numerous in the chain of seven-thousand-plus islands that made up the Philippines, had some time ago been hunted into local extinction.
At least that’s what the taos had told him. Ross St. Clair only hoped that the local peasants weren’t teasing poor “Joe.” The older members of the isolated community still remembered the first Americans to ever set foot on the island: a platoon of GI Joes during World War II. They hadn’t seen many Americans since, but the nickname had stuck.
The island version of a wedding reception commenced. Food and drink were carried the short distance to the town square from several houses belonging to the bride’s family. Everything was spread out along colorful cloth-covered tables. A few local musicians had brought their instruments; they began to play. The dancing started. Several dogs barked loudly when a group of boys lit a fiery Catherine’s wheel, named for the martyred saint, and suddenly it was a cross between a fiesta, a cockfight and the Fourth of July.
“Hey, Joe,” shouted one of the men in his limited English, “you want drink?”
The man’s name was Cebu and he had no teeth. Seventy-five years old according to some in Santo Tomas, maybe even older according to others, Cebu had been sitting outside the sari-sari—the general store—for the past ten years, smoking, drinking fermented coconut juice or the juice of sugarcane and telling his stories to the village children. He was a great favorite with the children.
“Thank you, Cebu. I will gladly drink with you and we will celebrate this day together,” answered Ross in the island’s native dialect.
The villagers had been surprised and pleased by how quickly he had learned their language. He’d also picked up a smattering of Tagalog, the basis of one of two official languages of the Philippines—the other being English—and several regional dialects, including Cebuano.
Hell, hadn’t his professors back in college always said he had a gift for languages?
“Perhaps you will stay in Santo Tomas and take a bride of your own one day?” teased the old man as they sat and drank the local brew.
“I am too young to marry,” claimed Ross with a less than solemn face.
One of their fellow revelers called out, “How old are you, Joe?”
“I am thirty-four,” he replied.
At that, Cebu cackled and pointed out, gesturing with both hands, “The bridegroom of my wife’s great-niece is only twenty. You are not too young.”
Ross St. Clair tipped his cup, drank deeply, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—displaying his appreciation for the homemade liquor—and proceeded to contradict himself. “Then I am too old.”
“You are not viejo—Cebu is viejo,” said yet a third man in Filipino English, that distinctive mixture of English, Spanish and localisms.
They all laughed again, more coconut wine was poured and the wedding celebration continued.
Ross St. Clair picked up his cup of coconut alcohol and started toward the beach on the far side of the island.
He had done his duty as the guest of honor. He had proposed the official wedding toast to the bride and groom. He had eaten until he could eat no more. He had danced the native dances. He had listened to the ritual verses or riddles, and he had applauded loudly when the bridegroom sang a favorite ancestral song: the kundiman, the greatest of Filipino love songs. Now it was early evening, the light was beginning to fade, and he had a sudden and fierce desire to see the sunset.
Sunset was a brief, brilliant spectacle lasting only minutes on this island, this jut of ancient volcanic mountain that rose from the Celebes Sea and sat so close to the equator. He had better hurry, or he would miss it.
He made his way along a well-trodden path that cut through the thick, green jungle vegetation. Ahead of him, there was an occasional glimpse of pure blue water. He could smell the salt and almost feel the sun-warmed sand beneath his bare feet. He made himself a promise: he would take off his boots as soon as he reached the beach.
The wild native orchids that grew everywhere on the island flapped in his face. There were a dozen varieties and more. He filled his lungs with their exotic dewy fragrance. He walked faster; he was nearly there now.
That’s when he saw the yacht.
It was long and sleek, dazzling white and obviously very expensive. And it was anchored offshore.
Ross stopped dead in his tracks.
Strangers were suspect in this part of the world until a man could determine if they were friend or foe. Under the circumstances,
the jungle provided him with a natural camouflage that he wasn’t eager to part with as yet. His brain seemed to clear instantly. Every one of his five senses went on red alert. He cocked his head and listened.
Voices.
He moved closer and peered between the leaves of a buri palm. There were two men standing together on the beach; they were engaged in an animated conversation. First one spoke, then the other. Arms were occasionally waved. Heads were shaken. They appeared to be negotiating. Several others—guards from the looks of the semiautomatic weapons they carried—were posted farther down the coastline, and a third was patrolling near the area where Ross crouched.
It didn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out these men were not islanders.
He studied the two who were doing all the talking. The one facing him was dressed in pretentious yachting gear, including the pseudo-captain’s cap on his head and the designer boat shoes, sans socks, on his feet.
The second man was wearing brown dress slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt. His hair brushed his collar each time he moved his head. His back was to Ross.
He inched closer.
They were speaking English.
“She doesn’t know a damn thing about it, I tell you,” vowed the one in the brown slacks.
The other man growled in a voice that sounded like he’d smoked a dozen Havana cigars already that day, “Make sure it stays that way.”
A nervous gesture, a softly spoken expletive, then he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Diana.”
The sometime yachtsman grunted once, then again, as if he were still skeptical, and inquired, “When does her flight get into Manila from L.A.?”
“Wednesday.”
“Then we expect the ‘merchandise’ to be in our hands by the end of the week.”
“It will be, I promise.”
“It’d better be, or Ms. Winsted will pay the price with her lovely head.”
Ross froze in place. Pay the price with her lovely head? Was it merely a figure of speech or a genuine threat?
“There’s no need to make threats, Carlos,” countered the younger of the two men by Ross’s calculations. “The delivery will be made on time.”
Delivery?
Delivery of what? Drugs? Contraband? Counterfeit money? Diamonds? Ross St. Clair’s imagination began to run wild.
He immediately brought himself up short. He was crazy, or well on his way to madness, seeing drug smugglers behind every bush. Maybe he’d been out here too long. Maybe he’d gone native and hadn’t even realized it.
No time to worry about that now. He had to get an identification on the two men if he could. Unfortunately they were both silhouetted against the setting sun; it prevented him from getting a good look at them.
Ross quickly scanned their individual heights, body sizes and shapes. The one dressed like a fanciful sailor was short, slightly stocky and had black hair. His eyes were concealed behind tinted sunglasses. Between the dark lenses and the white nautical cap, there wasn’t much he could determine about the man’s facial characteristics.
His companion was taller, at least six-one, and built like a quarterback. There was little else he could discern about the man.
“C’mon, c’mon, turn around, or at least give me a profile,” whispered Ross, knowing full well that he couldn’t be heard over the sound of the waves washing ashore.
Damn, he was losing the daylight fast. Worse, the visitors seemed to have concluded their business. They shook hands, and the stocky one walked back to the motorized launch beached fifty yards upshore. His guards followed. They got in the boat, pushed off, started the engine and headed directly for the anchored yacht. There was a name stenciled on the side, but he couldn’t make it out from this distance.
What he wouldn’t give for a pair of binoculars about now! Ross growled once or twice in exasperation.
The other man made a beeline for a small seaplane waiting for him farther along the coastline. Within five minutes, maybe less, the beach was deserted. It was as though no one had ever been there.
Ross realized then that darkness had descended on the island while he was busy watching the strangers. He’d missed the sunset, after all.
“I wonder what that was about,” he speculated, stepping out from behind the palm tree. “And just what in the hell am I supposed to do about it?”
He answered his own question. Nothing. Nada. He wasn’t going to do a damn thing. It was none of his business. Diana Winsted was none of his business. The whole undoubtedly sordid, and very probably illegal, business was none of his business. He didn’t owe anyone anything. He was keeping his nose clean. He was keeping his nose out of it. That was final.
Was there any real threat to the woman?
Ross shook his head and tried to reason with himself. It didn’t matter. He was out of the business of rescuing damsels in distress. Hell, he’d never even been in the business of rescuing damsels in distress. But he was no longer Mr. Nice Guy, who always did the right thing. He was no longer Ross St. Clair, dutiful son of the socially prominent Rachel and Matthew St. Clair of Phoenix and the San Fernando Valley.
He was a grungy jack-of-all-trades with a gift for languages and a knack for fixing things that were broken. He wandered the world, moving from job to job, village to village, country to country. He owed no man or woman his allegiance. He could come and go as he bloody well pleased. He was free, by God. He was free.
Two months ago he’d taken a boat from Manila to this particular island on a whim. He had stayed on a whim, and then to do a job. That job was completed. The village had a new well from which to draw its drinking water. There was no reason for him to remain any longer. He could move on, he should move on, as soon as he decided in which direction he was headed.
But the conversation he’d overheard on the beach would not leave Ross be. He replayed it mentally again and again. The older man’s threatening words niggled at him. Ms. Winsted will pay the price with her lovely head.
Was she lovely? he wondered.
Then he remembered something the other man had claimed: She doesn’t know a damn thing about it.
Was she innocent, as well?
Could he just walk away and pretend that he knew nothing of the threat or Ms. Winsted’s possible fate? Could he stand by and watch an unsuspecting woman pay with her life? Had he sunk that low? Had he become that uncaring?
Something his parents had drummed into him over the years about people—girls and women, in particular—came to mind: “Let your conscience be your guide, Ross.”
Did he still have a conscience? Had he retained any of the socially redeeming qualities that he had been raised with?
Apparently so.
“Damn it all to hell!” muttered Ross St. Clair as he poured out the contents of the cup still clasped in his hand. He watched as the liquid quickly soaked into the white sand at his feet.
It seemed that he knew in which direction he was headed, after all. He was about to make the return trip to Manila. He had a plane to meet.
Two
He was dressed like an unmade bed.
That was Diana Winsted’s first impression of the man standing on the other side of airport customs.
He held a makeshift placard against his chest; her name was scrawled across the piece of cardboard in bold, black strokes. She wondered if he’d written it himself. There was something rather emphatic, even uncompromising, about both the man and the hand writing.
She slipped on a pair of designer sunglasses and waited patiently for her passport to be examined and returned. It was also the perfect opportunity to study the stranger without his knowledge.
He didn’t look like a chauffeur or one of the company’s business associates, so she mentally crossed off the first two possibilities on her list.
What he looked like—Diana was amazed to find herself even giving it a second thought—was a soldier of fortune. Or how she imagined a soldier of fortune would look, anyway.
His
brown hair was slightly shaggy and streaked with blond at the temples; it was too long where his shirt collar brushed up against it at the nape. His skin was tanned a deep, unfashionable bronze. Apparently he hadn’t heard about the dangers of melanoma, or else a good sunscreen wasn’t in common use wherever he’d been spending his time.
There was at least a two-day’s growth of beard on his face, but it wasn’t enough to disguise a jaw that had been chiseled out of granite. The nose was a tribute to the ancient Romans, with a touch of the aristocratic thrown in for good measure. His eyes had squint lines at the corners; she couldn’t make out their color from this distance, but the enigmatic expression in them was unmistakable.
He was wearing wrinkled khaki—damp from perspiration or rain, she couldn’t tell which, since it was the wet season in this part of the world—and quasi-military boots, minus the military spit and polish. He had a well-worn canvas knapsack slung over one broad shoulder. Something told her that the man traveled light, very light, indeed, and the knapsack undoubtedly contained all of his worldly possessions.
She, on the other hand, was traveling with four matching pieces of Louis Vuitton. She’d had the sense to leave the rest of her luggage at home.
The customs official stamped her passport and handed it back with a polite smile. “Welcome to the Philippines, Miss Winsted. We hope you enjoy your visit.”
She gave him an equally polite thank-you in return, and began to collect her bags, signalling for a porter.
The man in wrinkled khaki immediately stepped forward. “Diana Winsted?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t bother to shake her hand; he just grabbed her by the elbow and steered her away from customs, leaving her luggage and an astonished porter in their wake.
Lowering his voice, he said very clearly, “You—we—have to get out of here.”
She tried to shake free of his grasp, but his fingers were like a vise around her arm. “I beg your pardon.”
He spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I’ll explain later.”
Diana told herself to remain calm, not to panic. What could possibly happen to her in a huge public airport? A huge public airport that was halfway around the world from home, a little voice reminded her.
Not His Wedding! (Silhouette Reissued) Page 1
