The Flawed Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  Sickness welled inside her. On the periphery of her awareness she felt Joel’s brutal tug on the fine fabric of her outfit, heard the sharp tearing sound, and felt the cool shaft of air against her skin. And then the coolness was replaced by the surging heat of Joel’s hands, savagely pushing aside the torn fabric, and possessing the soft fullness of her breasts, not with tenderness, but with a primaeval force that seemed to find an echo in her own body, the anger fear had previously suppressed rising up in a force to match Joel’s own.

  Whoever it was who had said that anger was a potent aphrodisiac had known what they were talking about, she decided hazily as Joel lifted her, carrying her swiftly to the bed, and laying her upon it, pausing, she realised seconds later when the fierce heat of his flesh covered hers, to remove his own clothes, his mouth clamping down on hers with a message that transcended everything but her body’s own urgent response to it.

  Later, she told herself she would feel shame for this, but right now all that mattered was her body’s urgent response to Joel’s touch; the ferocity of the fires he had lit, and which smouldered hungrily everywhere that his hands and lips touched. His tongue traced a sensuous trail along her neck, capturing the frantic pulse beating there, forcing from her aching throat a husky moan of surrender.

  Her fingers sought the breadth of his shoulders in protest, the damp heat of his skin beneath her palms erasing her intention to push him aside substituting in its stead a desire to explore the hard purity of his muscles, tautening as she touched, tiny shock waves of pleasure coursing through her body at the touch of his flesh, male and alien and subtly exciting.

  Joel muttered a protest against her mouth as her fingers slid from his chest to the clenched hardness of his stomach, while his own hands swept fiercely over her body, moulding her waist, and then sliding to her hips, appeasing her need for him by lifting her against him, the rasp of his hair-roughened thigh against her own smooth flesh infinitely pleasurable.

  Her wayward flesh responding against the dictates of common sense, Amber abandoned her attempts to withstand the combined force of their mutual desire, her small cries of pleasure as Joel’s tongue teased her nipples into aroused awareness finding an echo in his own hoarse demand to feel her mouth against his skin.

  She complied with lips that trembled slightly as they traced a delicate path across his shoulders, feeling with the sudden tensing of his muscles the effect she was having on him. His fingers tightened in her hair, drawing her down against him, but once tasted his flesh was like a heady drug and her lips moved feverishly over his chest, feeling the urgent thudding of his heart beneath the crisply curling dark hairs, and then lower, thrilling to the convulsive shudders racking his body as her tongue traced a delicate path across his flat stomach, knowing that his arousal matched her own; that he was no longer the cool, urbane stranger she had first known, nor the angry, punishing husband who had brought her to this room, but a man shaking with the desire to possess her.

  * * *

  His hands pulled her upwards and slid to her wrists, pinning her to the bed with masculine dominance. She struggled briefly to be free, her body aching for his.

  ‘God, I want you,’ Amber heard him mutter hoarsely as he looked down at her. ‘The way I feel at the moment, a whole lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to appease my desire.’ He bent towards her and Amber closed her eyes, her whole body poised and waiting…

  Seconds ticked by, then her wrists were released. She felt the bed move and opened her eyes. Joel was sitting on the side of it with his back to her.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he told her brutally. ‘Without love it doesn’t mean a thing.’ He turned and saw her expression before she could mask it and said savagely, ‘For God’s sake, you ought to be thanking your lucky stars I came to my senses, not looking at me as though…’

  ‘As though I want you to make love to me?’ Amber said tightly. ‘Women experience desire too, you know,’ she told him, desperate to retrieve her pride. ‘Love and sex don’t always go hand in hand.’

  ‘Don’t I just know it?’ Joel agreed grimly. ‘If it was feasible I’d suggest we had separate rooms, but it isn’t. Lee has a bottle of Scotch in his den,’ he went on. ‘They tell me it’s an excellent anaesthetic. You’d better just pray that that’s true, because despite all you’ve said and done I still don’t think you’re the kind of woman who can find oblivion in sex for sex’s sake. Oh, you’ve tried pretty hard to prove it tonight,’ he added bitterly. ‘First that guy at the party and now me, but we both know it doesn’t work, don’t we?’

  He was gone before Amber could speak. She watched him go in mute agony, longing to call him back, but prevented by her pride. Later she would probably feel glad, but right now it was pure, undiluted hell.

  * * *

  ‘You two left the party early,’ Edie Haines commented at breakfast, her eyes twinkling. ‘Now that’s what I call romance! I can’t remember the last time we left a party early, Lee, so that we could be alone, can you?’

  Amber managed a strained smile, although it was more than she could do to look at Joel. The atmosphere between them was so fraught with tension that she was almost relieved when he announced halfway through the morning that he had to go out. Where to? she wondered jealously when he had gone. To see Teri?

  He had been gone about an hour when the telephone rang. Amber and Paul were alone in the house, Julie having telephoned Edie to ask her to go over with Lee as Teri wanted to see them.

  ‘I don’t like to leave you alone like this,’ Edie apologised, ‘but Julie said it was quite urgent, although knowing Teri it will probably be something trivial. It’s my guess that she’s regretting leaving Joel,’ she added without thinking. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she apologised remorsefully, ‘how tactless of me! I didn’t mean to imply…’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Amber assured her, forcing a bright smile. ‘To tell you the truth, I got the impression at the party last night that Teri was still very… fond of Joel.’

  ‘Oh, she always was possessive. I suspect she can’t bear to think that someone else has taken her place. I hope we aren’t going to have to endure one of her tantrums.’

  Amber let the phone ring, but when the shrill noise persisted, she decided it would be better to answer. To her amazement the voice on the other end of the line asked for her.

  ‘Mrs Sinclair speaking,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘It’s Fairlea hospital, Mrs Sinclair,’ came the reply. ‘Dr Burns would like you to come right down here with Paul—something to do with one of the X-rays they took when you visited.

  Dr Burns was the paediatrician, and fear stabbed through her. ‘I don’t have a car,’ she protested. If only Joel was here, or even the Haineses.

  ‘Order a cab, Mrs Sinclair,’ the brisk female voice suggested in the tones of someone used to dealing with confused patients. ‘Or better still, I’ll give you the number of a service we use. They have a depot in your area, please hold a moment and I’ll look it up for you.’

  The brief seconds she had to wait for the number felt like aeons to Amber, in a fever of impatience to get to the hospital and see Dr Burns. She knew better than to ask to speak to him on the phone. Doctors preferred to talk in person, she knew that from her own experience, especially when it was bad news. ‘Stop it!’ she warned herself fiercely, quickly jotting down the number the girl gave her. Her fingers trembled as she dialled it. She could hear Paul playing in the living room, and she felt cold with dread. If only Joel were here!

  At last someone answered, a laconic male voice promising a car within ten minutes. The phone rang while she was urging Paul into clean jeans and tee-shirt, and as she raced to answer it Amber prayed that it might be Joel. It wasn’t; it was Chet.

  ‘I hope I didn’t get you into hot water last night?’ he asked. ‘That’s one hell of a jealous husband you have there. And I always thought the British male was unemotional!’

  Amber cut him short, explaining that she had to
take Paul to the hospital, surprised to see when she replaced the receiver that she had doodled Chet’s name on the pad where she had jotted down the taxi firm’s number.

  She barely had time to find her handbag and check her purse for money before the taxi had arrived and its driver was striding up to the door.

  All the way along the freeway Amber’s nerves were stretched to breaking point as she tried to keep Paul occupied, striving to appear natural and unconcerned.

  ‘But why do they want to see me?’ he demanded for the umpteenth time. ‘The doctor told me I was fine.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Amber agreed with a confidence she was far from feeling. ‘They just want to do some more tests. Tests that will probably help other children,’ she told him, hating herself for lying, but what was the point in both of them panicking? Let Paul enjoy peace of mind for just as long as he could!

  After several miles they turned off the freeway, where the road curved upwards towards the hills; a different route from the one she had taken with Edie. It seemed to go on for ever; the countryside around them growing increasingly desolate, almost bordering on desert; patches of scrub interspersed with sandy slopes, a bareness about the landscape that made Amber shiver a little despite the blazing heat of the sunshine. Perhaps it was the car’s air-conditioning, she thought, rubbing her goose-fleshed arms, and wondering why it was that the journey seemed to be taking so long. She glanced at her watch and frowned. It was closer to ninety minutes than sixty since they had left the house, and she was reasonably sure that when she went to Fairlea with Edie it had taken barely an hour.

  ‘Are you sure you know the way?’ she demanded of the driver, leaning forward to address him, her voice sharper than usual, as she added tensely, ‘You do know where we’re going?’

  ‘Sure I do, lady,’ came the drawled response. ‘And right here is where you get out. That’s if you’ve any sense. From here if you start walking back down that track you should be lucky enough to get a lift before nightfall.’

  ‘You… I…’ Amber stared at him in shocked silence as he suddenly braked and stopped the car on the lonely, dusty road.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded wildly as the driver pushed open her door. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You ask too many questions, lady,’ she was told in a newly hard voice. ‘Just get out, and forget all about this.’

  ‘But Paul…’ she started to protest, only to be silenced by the man’s laconic,

  ‘The kid will be fine with me. I don’t aim to hurt him. His ma wouldn’t like that.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT was several seconds before the truth filtered through to Amber’s numb brain.

  ‘You’ve kidnapped him,’ she said shakily at last. ‘On his mother’s instructions, so that she can claim custody. But you can’t… It’s illegal…’

  ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law,’ the man reminded her. ‘This isn’t the first custody case I’ve handled and it won’t be the last. Now be a good little girl and just run along. No one wants to hurt you.’

  No one had obviously told him that she was Paul’s stepmother, Amber realised, wondering how she could best turn that omission into an advantage. But first one thing had to be made crystal clear.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she told their captor firmly. ‘Where Paul goes, I go too. Did his mother tell you he needs medical treatments?’

  It was a long shot, but one which Amber felt sure had found its mark when the man frowned, swivelling round to study Paul’s frail form. Without prompting Paul huddled up against her, and pleaded tearfully, ‘My leg hurts… it hurts all over. I want my daddy!’

  ‘Okay, okay, you can stay with him. Only keep him quiet, otherwise I’ll have to make sure he does keep quiet, understand?’

  Amber did, and shuddered to think of drugs being administered forcibly to either of them.

  ‘Aren’t you going to blindfold us like they do in the films?’ she asked tightly, desperately bargaining for time, praying that someone would return to the Haines’ house and start looking for them. But how, and where? No one knew where she was or why they had left.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. These roads crisscross the desert hereabouts and there’s so many deserted old shacks that it would take a man a lifetime to search them all. In a few days the boy will be gone. Once the hue and cry dies down his mother plans to fly him out of California and back East where she can sue for American custody as the American parent of a half-American child.’

  Amber’s heart sank even further. She glanced down at Paul’s silky dark head and he lifted his eyes to hers. She squeezed his hand, trying to signify that they couldn’t talk, all the time desperately trying to think of some way they could escape—but how?

  They drove for another half an hour, by which time she had completely lost her bearings. Her head ached with fear and tension and Paul’s face had the waxen pallor of a child about to be carsick.

  ‘Please stop,’ she commanded their captor urgently, ‘Paul isn’t well.’

  To her unutterable relief he obeyed her command, even opening the car door and lifting Paul out into the hot desert air.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he warned them. ‘Otherwise you’ll both get sunstroke.’ He ambled back to the car and bent to select a tape to place into the cassette machine, turning slowly to stare at Amber’s rigidly resentful body and add mockingly, ‘This is one of the easiest jobs I’ve had in a long time—kidnapping a pair of cripples. You couldn’t run anywhere even if you knew where to run to, could you?’

  Tears stung Amber’s face as she turned away, but the sudden warm pressure of Paul’s hand on hers reminded her that for his sake she had to maintain control.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he urged her stoically. ‘It will be all right—Dad will come for us.’

  Oh, for just a little of Paul’s faith!

  Their ten minutes was up all too soon and they were hustled back to the car—like a couple of wayward sheep, she thought bitterly as the doors were slammed behind them.

  They travelled for another fifteen minutes and then turned off the main road, bouncing down a rough track which ended in front of a delapidated shack, roofed in rusting corrugated iron, the windows grimy and cobwebbed, no signs of life anywhere to be seen.

  ‘Out,’ their captor told them curtly, adding to Amber, ‘You—you’ll find the makings of coffee inside, make some for us while I report back to base.’

  Amber saw him fiddle with the two-way radio fixed in the car, and wondered wildly if there was any chance of her getting a message through to someone on it that they had been kidnapped. Probably not, she decided regretfully as she hustled Paul inside the rough shack. The kidnap had been professionally organised by someone who was obviously used to such tasks, and this was confirmed ten minutes later when the door of the shack was thrust open and the driver walked in, sniffing the coffee odour appreciatively, saying, ‘That’s right. No sense in making things any more difficult than they need to be. Kid’s nurse, are you?’ he asked, jerking his head towards Paul. ‘A cinch, most of these custody cases. Snatch the kid, keep it holed up for long enough for the fuss to die down and then the client ships it off to a state where they can safely sue for their own custody trial.’

  ‘It’s horrible!’ Amber protested bitterly. ‘Don’t you care about the misery you’re causing, the unfairness…’

  ‘It’s a business, honey, and I need the pay.’ He leaned back in one of the rickety chairs, placing his jean-clad legs on the table and extracting a tin from his pocket. Amber watched him roll a cigarette in silence. There was a tough quality about him that warned her that he was a cynical professional to whom pleading for compassion was a sheer waste of time. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Paul watching him, and reminded herself that her first duty must be to allay the little boy’s fears.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered to him, crouching down beside him and placing a consoling arm round his thin, hunched shoulders.

  ‘I’
m not,’ he told her stoutly, ‘I know Dad will come. And you needn’t be afraid either, I’ll look after you.’

  ‘That’s the way, son,’ their captor jeered. ‘Always remember to protect your womenfolk. Don’t you want to go and live with your ma? By the sounds of it, she’s one hell of a rich lady.’

  ‘I don’t like her,’ Paul said stubbornly. ‘And she doesn’t want me really.’

  ‘Sure she wants you. She wants you ten thousand dollars’ worth.’

  ‘Is that supposed to make him feel better?’ Amber demanded fiercely when Paul’s bottom lip trembled, reminding her of just how young he was. ‘His mother deserted him. The only reason she wants him is because she wants to hurt his father. Look,’ she added desperately, ‘his father would pay you the ten thousand dollars to return him, I know he would…’

  ‘Sorry, lady.’ He was shaking his head. ‘One of the first rules of this game is stick with your principal—that way you get more business. Like any other business you’ve got to build on your reputation—recommendations, ‘see, and if word gets out that you double-deal it’s a real no-no!’

  He was implacable and uncaring. She and Paul were just a commodity; she was probably lucky he simply hadn’t thrown her out of the car when he stopped it earlier, she reflected.

  ‘Why don’t you make us a meal?’ he suggested, breaking in upon Amber’s thoughts. ‘It will help-keep your mind off things. I won’t hurt either of you—that’s not the name of the game.’

  ‘How long are you going to keep us here?’ Amber asked dryly, moving slowly from the rough wooden table to the old-fashioned oven. Already the shack was becoming unbearably hot, and Paul looked dreadfully pale. Heat didn’t agree with young children, and she was terrified that the shock of their kidnapping might undo all the good work they had achieved on his leg.

  ‘That depends. Three or four days possibly for the boy, and I’m not sure about you. The instructions were to dump you somewhere out of the way. It may be that you’ll have to stay on here with me after the kid goes to give his ma time to get him clear. Can’t have you running back to Daddy telling tales, can we?’