Wrapping the slicker lining around her waist as a sarong to complete her outfit, she grabbed her wet things and returned to the protection of their corner.
“Gracias.”
He nodded. He’d taken off his holey shoes and laid them near the small fire, with the slicker spread nearby. She started to do the same with her clothes, when he said something in the island language and shook his head.
“What? I don’t understand.”
He stood, and took her slacks from her as she automatically backed away. He was tall, especially for an islander–some four inches taller than her five-seven–and broad-shouldered enough to block the light from the fire. He ignored her retreat, and wrapped powerful hands around the fabric, then twisted. The water wrung out splashed on the wooden floor between them.
“Oh, I see. Yes.” She followed his example with her blouse.
With her clothes at last laid out, the man gestured for her to go first through the narrow opening between the hubcap fire and the corner where he had set flattened cardboard boxes atop a long narrow cushion. She sat with her back to one wall and he rested against the other, with the fire at their feet.
“I’m Kendra Jenner,” she told him.
He looked at her, but said nothing. The firelight shifted shadow and stark brightness across a strongly-boned face. Pronounced cheekbones, sharp jaw, high forehead, all beneath thick, dark hair that waved despite being sleeked straight back.
“Kendra,” she repeated with a hand to her chest.
“Kendra.” He rolled the “r” and lingered over the final “a.” His extended fingers brushed the back of her hand. The unexpected contact fizzed at her taut-strung nerve-endings. “Kendra.”
“Yes.”
His large hand spread across the faded red cotton of his shirt. “Paulo Ayudor.”
“How do you do, Paulo?” Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer. His eyes remained on her face. His eyes were dark, so dark their only color seemed to come from the tiny reflection of firelight. “I wonder what you were doing out on the streets of La Baja when Hurricane Aretha came to call?”
“La Baja,” he repeated. Then words she didn’t understand. But she sensed in them a faintly disapproving question, and a tilt of his head made her think he’d asked what she’d been doing there herself. He continued another stream of words in the island language. But one word caught her ear. It sounded like impetuouso.
“I suppose it could appear impetuous. But I’d call it a calculated risk. Though, I’ll admit I don’t usually take chances like this.” She wasn’t sure if she meant chasing the story, pushing her luck with the storm or trusting him.
He rubbed his hand twice across his eyes, then dropped it.
She reached for her hairbrush from among the second pile of items she’d pulled from her purse. This larger pile of items her companion – Paulo–apparently didn’t think would aid them. Maybe a hairbrush wouldn’t help them survive, but it sure made her feel more human as she pulled it through her dripping hair.
“I can’t shake this story. There’s something about this Taumaturgio. A man who comes out of nowhere to help the children. No one knows when he’s coming. No one knows who he is . . . Not that I’m starry-eyed about an unknown hero the way my cameraman kept saying. A breakthrough story could move me up a notch on the ladder. That would be another step toward financial security. Not having to ever rely on–” She bit off the words and set the brush down. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, since you don’t understand what I’m saying.”
As she said the words, she knew that was precisely why she was telling him.
A second reason for talking scratched along her nerves as the wind cried louder and something above them creaked a protest. One of her profs had drummed into her that a reporter who was talking wasn’t listening. For the first time, she realized breaking that rule had at least one potential benefit. Blocking out what she didn’t want to hear.
“Anyway,” she went on, talking louder, “Taumaturgio’s the perfect breakthrough story. Sexy, daring, PC, mysterious. I could get great play–fantastic play–if I could find Taumaturgio.”
Paulo watched her with concentrated interest.
“What is it? What did I say?”
He blinked, and his expression shifted to mild confusion. Maybe it had been a trick of the firelight.
He rubbed his eyes again.
“Taumaturgio? Do you know Taumaturgio?”
His strong-boned face stayed blank. He shrugged.
The movement reminded her of the power in his broad shoulders when he’d pushed her out of the way of the falling urn. She should remember that and keep her guard up. But it was hard when he’d helped her, she wore his clothes, they might share a fate–
A crash shuddered in the distance, adding eerie emphasis to that thought.
They had both instinctively looked in the direction of the noise. As she turned back, she met his eyes. Slashes of dark brows and those strong bones gave his face a strength softened only by the long, dark lashes framing his deep-set eyes.
“I trust you.” The wind’s moaning nearly drowned her words. She tried to laugh. It came out rusty. “Lord, I sound like my mother. And I haven’t done that often.”
A guttural groan of wind-tortured wood came from above them. She jerked her head back and stared up. But beyond the sphere of their tiny fire stretched a void. A swirling, damp, dark void spattered with moans instead of stars.
Was it night? She didn’t know. She checked her wrist. Her watch had stopped at 4:38–minutes after leaving Senora Valeria’s.
She masked a shiver by shifting position on the cardboard-covered mattress.
“Mother,” he said, condensing the “th” into a harder sound.
Kendra wasn’t sure if he meant to remind her of what she’d been saying or was trying to make sense of the word. “Mother. Madre.” she translated.
“Ah, si. Madre.” His pronunciation gave it a twist she couldn’t describe, but she recognized the word. He smiled. He had straight, white teeth, unlike so many islanders. He also had a smile that shifted sharp planes into lines of warm pleasure.
“Yes. Mi madre.” She sighed. “She would have loved you–she loved most men. Looked up at them with her big blue eyes and trusted every man she met after my father died to take care of her the way he had. And man after man took advantage of her, while she thought she could hide behind their broad shoulders.”
Broad shoulders . . . She had hidden behind broad shoulders. His. From a hurricane she’d walked right into.
Aretha. The banshee clawing at their shelter with breath and voice. This time Kendra didn’t hide her shiver.
She pushed herself to keep talking, so she wouldn’t listen.
“But these are unusual circumstances.”
His dark eyes held so much intelligence that for a moment she wished he could understand her. Only then she wouldn’t have told him any of this.
She extended her hand. “Friends?”
His gaze slowly shifted to her hand. He repeated her word, then said another resembling amigo.
“Amigos.” She nodded. “Friends.”
He stretched his arm across the space between them and put his palm to hers for an instant before curling his long fingers around her hand. She hadn’t known how cold her hand was until the warmth of his surrounded it. A hand to hold on to while the dark world screamed around them.
She shook his hand more emphatically than she’d intended, while trying not to feel too grateful for the warmth. When she tried to withdraw her hand, he held on. Not tight, but securely. She glanced up as she again exerted a slight pressure to withdraw her hand. They were still looking at each other and he was still holding her hand when the roof fell in.
*
He used his hold on her hand to jerk her toward him, and underneath him. Crammed into the corner of the two interior walls, his body sheltered her. She knew she screamed. His shoulder muffled the sound. The impact of debris pounding against
his back transferred to her, echoing in her bones.
Waiting for the final, crushing blow.
Would they die?
She might have passed out. Time slid sideways into uncertain territory. When time righted itself, she became aware of a difference. A change.
Silence.
Silence.
No moaning wind. No howling rain. No screaming storm.
But also no movement from Paulo.
Oh, God. Please. Oh, God.
She worked one hand free from between their bodies, but couldn’t get her fingers to where she thought there would be a pulse. She shifted more strongly, spreading her hand wide, reaching for a reassuring flutter.
“Kendra.”
Paulo had said her name. He was alive. She could feel his heartbeat, pushing his blood through his veins.
He murmured something else, which sounded almost as if he asked if she was okay. But he couldn’t have asked it in words she would understand.
“Paulo.”
He raised his head. She couldn’t see his face; the fire must have been smothered, the lantern destroyed. But now she could hear his voice, and knew he spoke in the island tongue, rising at the end in interrogation.
“I’m okay. Are you hurt?”
He said something else that sounded somehow reassuring.
He carefully raised his upper body, balancing on one arm above her while he started to clear debris with a cautious hand. Their lower bodies were pressed together, their legs entwined.
She should have been embarrassed, uneasy. She wasn’t. She lay there, aware only of a lung-filling gratefulness for the reality of his weight and warmth against her.
They were alive.
When he had cleared enough space to lift off her, she forced herself to sit up, to take in their situation.
She brushed bits of wood, mud, shingles and jagged hunks of wallboard off the cushion while Paulo patiently restarted the fire.
The quiet pressed around them like a heavy blanket, cutting off the world as completely as the noise had. The eye of the storm. With the second half soon to start battering at them as harshly as the first half. And that would bring the storm surge, a hurricane’s deadly swell of water.
But for this moment, they were alive.
“Well, at least we have plenty of kindling,” Kendra muttered, tossing a piece of wood onto the meager flame.
Paulo turned then, his mouth starting to lift in a smile. His expression froze at the same instant she gasped. A jagged fragment of wood, as long as a pen but three times as big around jutted from the skin in front of his ear. Amid all the other stings and blows his body had taken, he must not have felt it until he started to smile, shifting those muscles.
“No.” She grabbed the hand he started toward it. “You might drive it deeper. I’ll do it. Here–”
She knelt in front of him, gesturing for him to turn toward her. He slid one long leg past her and bent the other, bringing his knee by her hip.
“Tip your head so I can see better.”
He stared at her. She put her fingertips to either side of his stubble-bristling jaw to turn and tip his head toward the firelight. As his head moved, his eyes never left her face.
In the flickering light she saw the spine of wood running under the skin for two inches. If she could slide it out, carefully, without leaving fragments . . . But that would mean doing it slowly and that would hurt more.
“This is going to hurt.” Her eyes met his for an instant, then skidded away. She put one hand along his jaw below the wound, thinking to hold him still if he jerked.
“Kendra.”
Her name was followed by a flow of soft words. She met his eyes again and knew he reassured her. Her breath came out in a rush. He touched the back of her bracing hand lightly, and she knew he’d sworn to hold still.
Drawing in a steadier breath, she shifted her hand to feel the point of the shard, just under his skin. Biting her lip hard enough that the moisture in her eyes might have been from pain, she started drawing the wood up and out.
The first inch she feared her hands would shake. The second inch she feared she would pass out.
He never moved, never made a sound.
Her legs trembled as she shifted her hold on the slick, narrowing shaft of the shard, pinching it hard. Her guiding finger felt the tip finally give up its hold on his flesh.
She gasped and dropped back on her heels, throwing the wood fragment out of their circle of light.
“Gracias, Kendra.”
Paler, Paulo still gave her a small smile and reached again toward his wound. His fingers came away red.
“You need a bandage. The blood–”
Even as she came up to her knees to look at the blood-oozing wound, she searched for a makeshift bandage, but saw nothing.
She needed something–anything. She grabbed the tail of the shirt she wore–his shirt–and drew it up to his cheek, pressing it against his wound. That corner soaked through, so she unbuttoned one, then two buttons from the bottom to free more material.
“It won’t stop bleeding. It won’t stop–” Her voice broke, and she realized she was crying.
“Shh, shh. Kendra.” Paulo’s arms were around her, his hands stroking down her back. “There you go . . . Kendra.”
She threw her arms around his neck and held on as tight as she could while his shoulder absorbed her brief, violent tears.
His shoulder felt hard and warm under her face, his breath soft and stirring against her neck, his hands firm and rhythmic stroking her back.
So alive . . .
She shifted, realizing he’d drawn her into his lap. She could smell the damp heat of his skin, a faint whiff of soap mixed with the earthy, watery scent of hurricane. And something deeper.
She’d known his kindness. His gentleness even. Now, all along where her body touched his, she felt his heat. His humanity. His maleness.
They were alive . . . alive.
“Paulo.”
He went still at her whisper against his neck. She tipped her head back to see his eyes. They were on hers. Then they shifted to her mouth. She moved or he moved or they both moved. It didn’t matter. They were kissing. No testing of lips, no teasing of tongues. But hard, hungry kisses that made her gasp. Long, stroking, driving kisses.
She arched against him, he laid her back, following her down, pressing against her.
No subtlety slowed frantic fingers against straining bodies. No thought tempered urgent cries.
They met, hard and fast. He entered her, she took him in. The rhythm already set, already racing. The finish brought her off the cushion, her head flung back. She heard him groan out a word, then felt his taut body tighten even more. A great warmth spilled into her, and then his body blanketed her completely.
How long had their frenzy lasted? How long had they laid like this, still joined? She didn’t know. She didn’t care.
She heard the storm raising its voice, first sighing then moaning. But it didn’t reach inside her the way it had before.
Paulo kissed her before shifting away, covering her with the clothes they’d discarded. He rigged the slicker over them, narrowing to a cave-like opening to the small fire. Their world had condensed to this tiny space, this flickering light, these moments.
He wrapped her inside the slicker liner, then cocooned her in the warmth of his body. They sat that way for some time she couldn’t measure, hearing the wind beyond them, watching it bat at the struggling fire.
“It’s starting again. Past the eye. Into the trailing half of the storm. If it sits over us like the first half . . .”
Paulo slid his hands up and down her arms, the friction and warmth of his touch pulsing into her newly chilled skin. He kissed the side of her neck, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He stroked slowly across her breast, finding her hardened nipple.
This is different from before. This is more . . .
She pushed all thought away and absorbed his touch.
The
storm grew beyond them, howling and dashing water at their covering. But the one inside her was stronger. He laid back, carrying her and turning her with him so she was above him. With him. Taking him inside her.
*
She fell asleep at times, for minutes or hours, she didn’t know, but each time she awoke, his arms were around her and she felt the steady pulse of his heart.
She talked. Of growing up with her mother and without her father, and then of her mother’s death last year. Of Amy and childhood summers at Far Hills, and then Amy’s death five years ago. Of her job. Of her dreams. Of her fears.
And he listened.
Sometimes he sang to her, in a low voice that rumbled in his chest. Snatches of a tune she didn’t recognize, words she couldn’t understand. But it soothed her.
When she woke to see narrow strips of brightening sky high above them, he peeled two oranges and they shared them. Then he licked the juice from her fingers, and she did the same for his, and they made love again.
The next time she awoke thoroughly, she could tell the sun was waning. From outside, she heard gunshots, and knew that’s what had awakened her.
Paulo sat up, drawing her with him, still inside the circle of his arms. He faced her and spoke in a steady voice, while the gunshots and a low roar of shouts came from a distance.
At the end, she could only shake her head. “I don’t understand, Paulo.”
He kept his eyes on hers for a long moment, before he released her to stand and start dressing. Then she understood.
He was leaving.
But he would come back. She understood that promise from his eyes. He slipped into the murkiness beyond their small fire for a moment, then returned with a stout length of wood he handed to her with a nod. She understood that, too. Protection. Nature had done its damage and now humanity added to it with looting and other crimes.
Paulo looked at her for a moment, then took one step away.
She lurched up. “No!” Don’t go. She wanted to scream it out, but didn’t.
He caught her when her unsteady legs might have given way, his arms around her warm and familiar. He kissed her forehead and set her away from him.
Lost and Found Groom Page 3
