The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  “I should probably go with him.” Hedda quickly smoothed her hair and checked her blouse for smudges of dirt.

  “On the way, would you please ask Goodnight to collect wood for a fire?” Cordelia asked. “We ought to try cooking dinner tonight.”

  Hedda sighed at the prospect.

  “It’s getting late. How about if we look for some food to bring back with us, and start cooking tomorrow?”

  Cordelia was surprised; her aunt had always enjoyed cooking over an open campfire. But she nodded and watched Hedda and the professor set off down the beach before turning back to her work.

  Daylight hours flew by and the sun was setting when Goodnight’s sardonic voice came from over her shoulder as she knelt on the sand in a circle of cellulose packing material.

  “Thank God the teacups made it,” he said.

  She looked up to find him staring with male disdain at the piece of flowered earthenware she held.

  “Yes. Thank heaven.” She stuffed it back into the crumpled paper and pasteboard box that had protected it thus far. “Otherwise, we might not have anything for gifts or to barter for supplies and information.”

  “That’s why you brought china cups along? For bartering?”

  “Well, it wasn’t for tea parties in the jungle,” she replied dryly. “You didn’t honestly think…” But, from the look on his face, he had.

  Her eyes narrowed. It was time to disabuse him of his all-too-familiar notions about her. There came a time in all of her associations with men that she had to do so, and this seemed as opportune a moment as any. She got to her feet, flushed from annoyance and determination.

  “In the agrarian cultures we are likely to encounter, sharing food and drink has special significance, as does the sharing of ceremonial vessels. Teacups are as close to ceremonial as we can get without being sacrilegious. Presenting village elders with them is a way of sharing a part of our culture and ensuring good will.” She propped her hands on her waist. “More effective and respectful than cheap tin mirrors and strings of colored beads, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” he said with a disconcerted edge.

  “And that surprises you, does it? That I actually make sense.”

  He paused long enough to bat away the buzzing of his better sense.

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “And just what about me makes you think I lack intelligence, foresight, and common sense?” She stepped closer and caused him to take a step back, kicking cellulose from underfoot in the process.

  “I’ve never thought you lack intelligence, O’Keefe.”

  “Just foresight and common sense?” She took another step.

  “I didn’t say that.” The dart of his eyes toward the open beach said he wished there was more of it between them. “It’s just that… you’re a woman.”

  “I thought we covered that point.”

  “In a hotel suite in Tampa,” he said, his gaze going pointedly past the graceful palms that rimmed the beach to the dense inland forest that awaited.

  “Oh. And now that we’re on the brink of the real test, you’re not so certain. What makes you think I’m a fainter? Have I been helpless?”

  “No.”

  “Cowardly?”

  “No.”

  “Indecisive?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Overconfident?”

  “Not… especially.”

  With each word she had advanced a bit more, backing him steadily toward a palm tree behind him.

  “Say it, Goodnight. Say what it is that really bothers you.”

  “Women are… often… unreliable.”

  “We are, are we?” There was a thought worth exploring further: some woman or women had left Hartford Goodnight, enigma extraordinaire, in the lurch. “We don’t keep our word or commitments? Don’t hold up our end? Quit in the middle of things?”

  “Generally speaking.”

  “Well, speak specifically. We’re not talking about women in general or the other women you’ve known, we’re talking about me. When have I been unreliable? When we ran through the streets of Havana with soldiers after us? When I refused to give Castille the scrolls? When I held off the government soldiers on the beach with a gun, or pulled you into the water and helped you swim a quarter mile to the ship?”

  He reddened more with each example she cited.

  “Well, n–no.”

  “So, I’m not unreliable. Then what’s your problem with me?”

  “You’re…too…”

  “Yes?” She made a winding motion, ordering him to dredge it up.

  Backed into a corner, he was forced to finally say it.

  “Beautiful.”

  She paused for a moment, having finally gotten the response she expected, but wishing he hadn’t made it sound like a hanging offense. She could see in his face that her appearance was not an obstacle easily overcome.

  “By whose standards?” she demanded.

  It was a question she had asked a number of times, one for which she had never received an honest answer. Astonishment, chagrin at their own thoughts, or fear of giving her too much power had always kept men silent. Until now.

  Goodnight’s initial surprise melted into embarrassment and then confusion at her response. He turned a becoming shade of crimson. She’d left him only one way to escape this conversation with a shred of pride; he had to be as honest with her as she was with him. It took him a moment to finally meet her eyes.

  “Mine.”

  That desperate bit of candor set her back on her heels. Briefly.

  “So, you’re disagreeable and uncooperative because you’ve decided—by some inexplicable measure—that I am beautiful.” She edged closer. One deep inhalation by either of them would bring their bodies together. “How can the difference of a tiny fraction of an inch on a feature or an extra dash of pigment here or there keep me from being a decent, capable human being? Do you have any idea how absurd that is?”

  Instead of trying to escape, he squared his shoulders.

  “Unfortunately, I do.”

  She swallowed hard. She’d never gotten this far with a man before.

  Hart swallowed hard. He’d never gotten in this deep with a woman before. Never been this honest or felt this damned naked. There she stood—with her hair a blaze of sunset-flamed chestnut, her eyes pools of dark honey, and her face a Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece—demanding that he confront his own irrational standards. And all he could think about was how good it would feel to pull her against him again and kiss her senseless.

  “We’re headed for the jungle. My appearance is irrelevant,” she declared.

  Only to a blind man, he thought. Unfortunately, there weren’t any of those in the Tampa Bay Hotel, at the restaurant the other night, in O’Brien’s crew, or among those residents of Tecolutla—mostly men and mostly young—who had lingered on the beach to catch a glimpse of her.

  “I disagree,” he said testily, trying desperately to summon more objective language. “Appreciation of your physical attributes is shared by every man you encounter—including the men of this benighted town— among whom we still have to find guides.” He flicked an irritable glance toward the youths on the beach and found them hidden from view by the supply tent. “Their eyes follow you everywhere. And where their eyes lead, their hands will itch to follow.” He lowered his gaze to hers. “Sooner or later it will cause problems.”

  “And you’re afraid you’ll be called on to defend my honor?” She laughed and took that deep breath that brought her breasts into contact with his ribs. His breath caught and he felt a ripple of heat spreading through him from that point of contact. “Please. I’ve been dealing with men’s roving eyes and itchy hands since I was thirteen years old. I’m fully capable of defending myself against unwanted male attentions. I have done so on numerous occasions and in numerous cultures and situations. Why do you think I learned to shoot so well?”

  Her response stunned him. Then embarrassed him. Sh
e wasn’t exactly a babe in arms; she had undoubtedly encountered as many different approaches, overtures, and propositions as she had encountered men. Suddenly, the threat he had proposed to chasten her turned into a shameful reality that chastened him instead. She was a continual target of male lust. His included.

  “Long ago I learned that the way I look is both a blessing and a curse.” Her tone grew more serious. “It causes some people to expect too much of me and others too little. Unfortunately, like most men, you seem to have fallen into the latter group. You don’t want to admit that I am resourceful and self-reliant and intensely practical. You select bits of me that fit your conception and ignore everything else.”

  Ignore parts of her? He groaned privately. If only he could.

  His gaze slid over her cheeks—perfect skin that even in the fading light bore the blush of ripe apples—and came to rest on her wet-satin lips. She was wrong; he didn’t expect too little of her. From the minute he laid eyes on her, he had known that she was more than he could deal with, and time had certainly proven him right. Even now, as he glimpsed in her a strength that dispensed with excuses, accusations, and recriminations, she overwhelmed him.

  And yet, there was something else in the depths of those stunning eyes, something unsettling, something that touched and then took hold of him…

  “So if we look at you too much, we’re out of bounds; if we don’t see enough, we’re equally off the mark. You ask men to walk a very fine line, O’Keefe.” His throat constricted. “And most of us have damned big feet.”

  She glanced toward his boots.

  “You certainly do, anyway.” Her lashes lowered and her chin raised. He leaned toward her and she met him, molding her body against his. When she spoke, her gaze focused hotly on his mouth. “All I ask is the cooperation you would give the leader of any expedition you joined.” She grasped his sleeves and he could feel her hands trembling. “Quit thinking of me as a woman first, last, and only.” Her voice sank provocatively lower. “Stop equating me to whatever woman it was that left you high and dry—”

  “I never said a woman left me—”

  “You didn’t have to,” she said, stretching upward.

  Sixteen

  There were grave penalties, he thought, for defying the laws of physics. And just now, that strange, compelling gravity that she exerted on him was demanding unconditional obedience. He lowered his head and felt a surge of overwhelming pleasure as their lips met.

  Dear God—it was one of the wonders of nature. Soft and enveloping and wet and stimulating; he was awash in sensations he’d never experienced, never imagined before. His whole body sprang to life as he slid both arms around her and pulled her harder against him, molding her to him.

  Her whimper of pleasure came as a mild shock. She was experiencing the same delicious sensations, the same steamy compulsion for joining. Her mouth opened to him, welcomed him, hungry for contact that produced both satisfaction and deeper hunger. He responded with a growl and ran his hands over her back, searching her shape through her clothes, claiming the curves he’d memorized the first time he saw her and discovering even more; her surprisingly muscular shoulders, her narrow waist, the soft edges of her breasts and the neatly rounded buttocks he’d seen as she stood dripping wet on the ship…

  His fingers encountered a band of leather beneath her soft woolen skirt and traced in downward to her right side, where it ended in polished steel that had been warmed by her body and felt shockingly sensual there on her hip. His hand slid over the gun and the thigh it was strapped against. Hot, unyielding steel pressed against soft, warm skin.

  He moaned against her mouth, and grabbed her buttocks with both hands lifting her against his hardness. Her thighs shifted and suddenly he was cradled against her body’s delicious, maddening heat. A shudder of anticipation went through his—

  “Ahoy there, Miss O’Keefe!” A familiar voice came from beyond the tent.

  He froze and felt the shock of recognition that ran through her as well. It was O’Brien and his men, returning from the local cantinas.

  “We’ll be headin’ back to th’ ship now and catchin’ th’ tide.” There was a slight pause. “Where are you?”

  It took a moment for her to push away and steady herself on her own two feet. He could see her struggling for self-control, smothering her body’s lush response beneath a fierce blanket of calm.

  “Here, Captain!” she called out, her voice surprisingly normal. She took a deep breath and hurried around the tent to meet him and his men at the edge of their darkening camp. “So, you’re leaving?”

  “Just thought I’d best check with you once more about th’ arrangements. You all right, miss?”

  “Me? Perfectly fine, Captain. Never better.” Hart could hear in her voice the change in her posture, that shoulders-back and chin-up stance that said she was fully in control. And he knew as he leaned back against the palm and stared at his own trembling hands that it was a performance, one she had perfected over long years of confronting and dealing with men.

  The heat and pressure in his loins began to migrate north and settled in his lower chest as a confusing lump of warmth. He had just experienced the woman inside the woman and would never be able to look at her the same again.

  “One month from today,” he heard her say. “Right here, on this beach.”

  “I’ll wait three days, but that’s all I can give ye. Things are heatin’ up. There’ll be Spanish patrol boats all over th’ Carib lookin’ for us.”

  “Don’t worry.” He could hear a smile in her voice. “We’ll be here.”

  O’Brien laughed. “I reckon you will. A month, then.” The captain tugged the bill of his hat at Cordelia. “Best o’ luck to you, miss.”

  Hart peered around the tent and spotted her standing there, watching O’Brien and his men fade across the beach toward the longboats. She remained there well after they disappeared from sight. Putting her hand to her throat, she turned to find him nearby, staring at her. She couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “So. Where were we?” She hoisted her chin to a defensive angle. “Oh, yes. This unreliable woman who walked out and left you high and dry.”

  He turned away and headed for the nearby trees.

  “I believe I have a campfire to make.”

  “Sooner or later I’ll get it out of you,” she called after him, causing him to pause a moment as he headed for the stack of downed limbs and driftwood he’d gathered.

  “Later is better for me.”

  By the time Hedda and the professor returned from town, Goodnight had a welcoming fire going and Cordelia had finished squaring away the equipment and making up her sleeping cot.

  “We brought food,” Hedda called. “And it’s delicious.”

  “We also find guides,” the professor added as they emerged out of the gloom into the golden glow of the fire.

  “Really?” Cordelia sprang to her feet to help Hedda carry the bundle of food to one of the small crates they were using for a camp table. “Who are they?”

  “Two brothers,” Hedda declared.

  “Itza and Ruz Platano,” the professor said, watching Cordelia’s reaction. “Others say they spend much time upriver and know the people and the villages.”

  “Have you talked to them? Did they agree to take us inland?”

  “What do they charge?” Goodnight inserted a practical note.

  “We do not see them. They are away, harvesting honey from the hives of the vanilla bees. They return tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Platano?” Goodnight tucked his pen in his journal and set it aside. “That sounds oddly familiar. What are they called again? Itchy and Rouge?”

  The professor looked nettled.

  “What else was it they said at the cantina?” Hedda asked the professor. “Muchachos or something Platano?”

  Behind them on the darkened beach, one of the local boys caught the names and relayed them back to his friends with a laugh: “Itza y Ruz—les muchachos
Platano!” The professor charged to the edge of the tents, roaring threats in Spanish that sent the youths running off down the beach toward town.

  “Itchy and Rouge? Who names their children after skin conditions and cosmetics?” Goodnight said, strolling over to investigate the food Hedda and Cordelia were laying out on the crate. “Sound dodgy to me.”

  The professor took a seat on an empty crate as if it were gilded Louis Quatorze and eyed the freshly baked tortillas, grilled fish, and fruit salsa.

  “Sometimes,” he declared with great nobility, reaching for a tortilla with a raised pinky, “one must make do.”

  “Well, I don’t care if they have two heads,” Cordelia said with an arch glance at Goodnight, “as long as they know the area. And are reliable.”

  January 30, Day 10

  Fish and tortillas for four: $2.00 U.S. Bottle of native liquor with WORM in bottom: $1.50 U.S., silver. (Worm said to absorb poisons.) (Will NEVER be desperate enough to drink “tequila.”)

  Abandoned by ship’s captain on the backside of creation. Professor unstable. Aunt pleasant but ineffectual. O’Keefe terrifying and unpredictable. One minute gelding me verbally——the things that woman says to me! The next minute backing me against a tree and kissing me witless.

  God help me——all she has to do is look at me with those honey-taffy eyes and I’m reduced to blithering. Damnedest color I’ve ever seen. Correction: she doesn’t so much look at me, as she looks INTO me. I get the feeling she can count the spots on my liver. After a few moments, I can feel her reaching through me, sorting me out, all the way to my toes. My knees go weak and my blood heads for my loins. Something takes me over.

  Wonder if she’s ever spent time in Barbados or Port au Prince.

  If she starts killing chickens and dancing around a fire…

  Note: Check with local physico ——if there is one——about local cures.