She tried to smile and found herself breathless. Stranger still. “I’m sorry I was so long. I was searching for the rations, but I’m afraid they weren’t any good any longer, so I had to toss them out. Did you have enough? Perhaps if there aren’t any patrols around, we can find some fruit in the jungle tomorrow morning. Sometimes we can—”
“There’s no more food?” Fletch’s question cut through her words like a machete.
“None?”
She shook her head, avoiding his gaze as she moved across the room to set the lantern on the ground beside the blankets. “But I can build a fire now and make coffee. Perhaps that will satisfy you. I’m really very sorry.”
“Will you stop apologizing?” His voice was so harsh, her gaze snapped back to him. She inhaled sharply as she saw his face. A flush was mantling the broad line of his cheeks, and his eyes were blazing pale fire at her. “Dammit, you lied to me. Do you think I’m some kind of idiot that I can’t read you? There was never any more food, was there?”
“There’s no need to be angry,” she said soothingly, taking an involuntary step back. She could feel the waves of power radiate from him, power that was now charged with rage. “It’s not important. Tomorrow—”
“To hell with tomorrow.” He was on his feet and moving toward her. “And I’ve every reason to be angry.” He grasped her shoulders and shook her. “That was the last of your rations, wasn’t it? You lied to me. You gave me that food and went away, knowing I wouldn’t eat it if you sat there and didn’t take a bite or—”
“I wasn’t hungry,” she said, interrupting, trying to stem the flow. They were so close, she could feel the furnacelike heat emanating from his body and the smell of clean soap and a woodsy aftershave. “I had something to eat this morning.”
“What?” he fired at her.
She moistened her lips nervously. “Fruit, I think. Something.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re not telling me the truth.”
“All right. Maybe it was last night.”
“Maybe,” he repeated with soft menace. “Or maybe not. When did you eat last, Samantha?”
She gave up. “Yesterday afternoon.” Then, as she saw his face darken, she hurried on. “But I had all the melon I wanted then. It was only because the patrols showed up that I didn’t eat after that. There were only enough rations for the prisoners in the cavern. They were in much worse shape than Ricardo and me, so we—”
“Gave them your food,” he said grimly, finishing her sentence. “And was I in worse shape, too, that you felt compelled to give me your last bit of food? Look at me, I’m built like a bull, and if I miss a meal, it’s because I forget or I’m too busy, not because there’s no food to eat.” His fingers spread on her shoulders, testing their fine-boned frailty. “And you … Dear Lord, you’re skin and bones. Do you know how this makes me feel?”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty.” Her voice was gentle. “I’m sorry.”
“If you don’t stop saying that, I’m going to throttle you.” His eyes were blazing down at her. “Why, dammit?”
She raised her head and looked him directly in the eyes. “You were my guest,” she said with dignity. “It was only right that I offer you what I had.”
A look of stunned disbelief spread over his face. “Your idea of hospitality is carried to the extreme. Where the hell is your common sense?”
“I guess I don’t have any.” She smiled faintly. “I’m pretty impulsive, and I often leap before I look.” Her smile faded. “But I didn’t do that this time. I always try to pay my debts. I can never adequately repay you for saving Ricardo and the others, but I have to do what I can.”
“I don’t take food from starving women.”
She shook her head. “I’m not starving. I’m not even hungry. I’m very tough, you know. I’ve gone far longer with much less.” She smiled again. “And once I’ve had a cup of coffee, I’ll be fine.”
He gazed down at her intently, his eyes narrowed on her face. His big hands were still kneading her shoulders, but she wasn’t sure he was aware that he was doing it. He appeared totally absorbed, as if he were trying to unravel a complex and very irritating problem.
But if he was unconscious of his hands on her body, she was certainly not. A strange languid heat seemed to be generated beneath his palms, and her flesh was taking on an excruciating sensitivity. She drew a deep breath. “Mr. Bronson?”
He didn’t answer at first, and she thought he hadn’t heard her. Then his hands slowly released her and he stepped back, his face expressionless. “Fletch.” A grim smile indented the corners of his lips. “Since I’ve stolen your last crust of bread, I believe formality is ridiculous.” He gestured to the pallet against the wall. “Sit down. I’ll make the fire and the coffee.”
“No, I—”
He halted her protest with an upraised hand. “I’m doing it,” he said curtly. “Sit down and rest, dammit.”
She slowly sat down on the blanket. “Very well.” She crossed her legs Indian-fashion, resting her palms on her knees. “And then will you talk to me? I may be alone here for a week or two until it’s safe for me to leave and go after Paco.” She tried to keep her voice light and cheerful. “This might be my last chance for conversation for a while.”
He gazed at her again with that curious intensity, his expression engimatic. “Yes.” He leaned down and began to lay the wood for the fire. “We can talk.”
TWO
“YOUR ENGLISH IS very good. You don’t have even the hint of the accent your friend Lazaro has. Are you an American?”
“My English should be good.” Samantha laughed with genuine amusement as she took another sip of coffee from the tin cup. “I was born in Dallas, Texas. I wasn’t aware that St. Pierre existed until I was ten years old.”
“Interesting.” Fletch cradled his own cup in his hands, gazing at her over the crackling flames of the fire. “Would you care to tell me how an American happens to belong to a revolutionary band on an island in the Caribbean?”
“My father was a newspaper man. Not a very well-known one, but he was bilingual and fairly competent. After my mother died, we came down here to live and he got a job as a reporter on the island’s leading newspaper. It seemed like a good idea to him at the time. St. Pierre was the island paradise he’d always dreamed about. I liked it here too. I made friends and learned the language.” She looked down into the coffee in her cup. “When I was fifteen, the junta overthrew the government, and suddenly I didn’t like it here any longer. Neither did my father. Unfortunately the junta didn’t like either my father or his stories in the newspaper. They killed him.”
The baldness of the statement was more poignant than a more emotional recital ever would have been. “You loved him?”
“Yes.” She took another sip of coffee. “So I joined Ricardo in the hills, and I’ve been here ever since.” She lifted her gaze to meet his own. “That’s all. Now tell me about you. I’m sure your life is much more interesting than mine has been.”
“I believe a good many people would give you an argument on that score. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” She smiled. “I’m very curious about you. I’ve never met a tycoon before. Do you have a family?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad. You probably need someone to spend your money. I bet you’re too busy to do it yourself.”
He went still. “Are you volunteering?”
“Who me?” She shook her head. “I’m going to be very busy here on St. Pierre. You’ll have to find someone else for the job.” She chuckled. “Besides, you need someone who knows all the brand names. I don’t know a Rolex from a Dior.”
His eyes twinkled. “I think you could tell the difference. One is a wristwatch, the other is a couturier.”
“You see? I’d be hopeless.” She rested her chin on her drawn-up knees and gazed into the fire. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
“You’re easily ple
ased.”
“I guess I am. Sometimes it’s enough just to be alive, with a fire to warm you and someone to talk to.” She shivered. “I get scared sometimes. I’m not very good at being alone.”
Yet she refused to give up and leave this hellhole of an island. Anger and frustration surged through him, sharpening his voice. “If you intend to stay here, you’re going to have to grow accustomed to it.”
She nodded. “I will. Do you mind being alone?”
“No, it’s never made any difference to me. I’ve been alone most of my life.”
“Then you must be very strong.” She studied him intently. “I think you’d be a good person to lean on when things got rough. It’s a pity you don’t have a family. Don’t you like children?”
“As a matter of fact, I do like them. I’d like very much to have one of my own.” His lips twisted cynically. “Unfortunately, acquiring a child usually involves marriage or at least some form of permanent relationship. I’ve discovered I have neither the time nor the inclination for either.”
“I see.” She shook her head. “Too bad. Maybe you’ll change your mind someday.”
“It’s not likely.” His face became expressionless again. “I prefer to avoid complications, and a situation involving a permanent companion is definitely a complication to a man in my position. For one thing, I enjoy the hell out of my work, and I’m not about to let a woman interfere with it.”
“The battle, not the prize,” she said softly.
He grimaced. “Well, I’m no prize myself. I’m a hell of a lot better in the boardroom than on the social scene. I don’t understand all the fancy subliminal footwork that goes on at cocktail parties. I believe in taking what I want and paying for it.”
“The two concepts seem at odds.”
“Not really.” His gaze zeroed in on her face. “You took what you wanted tonight when you unloaded that hypodermic into Lazaro, and you paid the price when you stayed in his place. I believe our philosophies are basically very similar.”
She thought about it. “Perhaps you’re right, but you violated your philosophy tonight when you jumped out of the helicopter so that Ricardo could leave. You took nothing, but you still paid. How do you explain that? Impulse?”
He shook his head. “I’m seldom impulsive, though I rely heavily on my instincts at times.”
“And your instincts told you there was something worth staying for on St. Pierre?” She shook her head, her eyes sad. “I wish it were true, but everything of value vanished when the junta took power. You’re going to be disappointed.”
“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. He met her eyes again across the fire. “Sometimes the prize doesn’t become visible until you tear through the nonessentials. There may be something I want very much on St. Pierre.”
She could see the flames of the fire in his green eyes, and she gazed at him in helpless fascination. Compelling power was always mesmerizing, and every line and plane of his face sang with power. Power and something else that robbed her of breath and made her oddly dizzy. With an effort she pulled her gaze away. “Well, you don’t have long to find out,” she said lightly. “Your helicopter will be back tomorrow night.” She finished her coffee in two swallows and set the cup on the ground. “I think I’ll get a breath of air. Would you care to come along? I’d like to show you something special.”
“Why not? I don’t have anything more pressing to do this evening.” He rose to his feet and reached out to pull her up to stand beside him.
She smothered a little gasp and tried to keep her expression as composed as Fletch’s. It had been nothing, she told herself. That tiny jolt of arousal when he had touched her had to be three parts imagination and one part sexual chemistry. But her hand was still tingling, and she found she was trembling. She casually withdrew her hand and turned away. “Hand me that lantern, will you? We have to go through three passages to reach my window.”
A window in a cave? Fletch wondered as he followed Samantha through the curving passages. Well, it would be no more bizarre than anything else he had encountered that night. The lantern light cast shadows before them on the walls of the cave and caught gleams of gold in Samantha’s chestnut hair. Richness and fragility should not have existed side by side, but in Samantha they did. The golden olive of her skin, that shining hair, those impossibly beautiful eyes were all full of vibrance and color, yet she still appeared as evanescent as morning mist.
Her shoulders had felt as breakable as the Fabergé egg on his desk in his study at home. And he had wanted to keep touching her as he touched the Fabergé. He wanted to run his hands over her warmth and explore and test that fragility. The urge had been so strong, he’d had to force his hands to release her. What was the fascination she was beginning to hold for him? No, not beginning. The fascination had been there from that first moment at the helicopter. It was only in the last few minutes he had realized that something else had entered into the picture.
Desire. Aching hunger like nothing he had ever felt before, reaching out, imprisoning him with silken skeins. He had watched the firelight play on her thin face; the arch of her throat as she had thrown back her head to laugh; the quick, nervous grace of her slim hands; and he had wanted to come to her with an intensity that dominated his entire being. Come, take, possess, and hold … Even now he could feel the heat flood his loins as he looked at her. Dammit, he didn’t want this. He liked to have control of his body as he did everything else in his life, and there was no control here. He was like a stallion after a mare, lost in a mindless haze of sexuality.
“It’s right at the end of this passage,” Samantha called back over her shoulder. “I promise you that it’s worth the walk.”
He wanted her. Why not take her? A sexual attraction of this strength was seldom one-way, and there had been a few moments back there by the fire when he had seen something flare up in her that had reflected his own hunger. She might have been Lazaro’s woman, but she wanted him now.
He smiled grimly as he realized he had already mentally consigned her relationship with Lazaro to the past tense. Well, it was in the past, he decided with sudden recklessness. This damn island had taken something from him, and now he would take something from it. She had no business staying here risking death and imprisonment, anyway. He would take care of her, see that she was safe and lost that air of delicacy. He was rationalizing, he thought with disgust, giving himself excuses for taking what he wanted. Why couldn’t he simply admit he would have done anything in his power to have her no matter what the circumstances?
Then he suddenly realized it was the blasted tenderness, the oddly poignant caring that was causing these inexplicable qualms of conscience.
“There it is.” Samantha turned to him, her face glowing with delight. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
His gaze followed her own and he nodded slowly. “It’s wonderful.”
Samantha’s “window” was a natural opening in the cave that started two feet from the ground and stretched almost eight feet high and five feet wide. It overlooked a view of breathtaking beauty. Moonlight glittered on the dark waters of a large lake some thirty feet below and softened the wildness of the lush thicket of the surrounding hills with shadowy mystery.
Samantha was gazing at him in disappointment. “You don’t like it?”
“I said it was wonderful.”
“But do you mean it?” One slim hand reached out to grasp his arm. “I can’t tell. Don’t you ever change expressions? Tell me what you’re thinking.”
What he was thinking now was X-rated and would probably scare the hell out of her. Every muscle in his body had readied when she had touched him, and he could feel the throb of the pulse in his temple, fast and heavy.
Her hand released his arm as if she had touched something that had burned her, and she backed away with an uncertain laugh. “That was rude of me. I guess you have to cultivate a poker face when you do business with power figures.” She lifted her chin. “But it’s true. I’m su
re it must be very frustrating to everyone in your circle when you give them only your stone face.”
“I assure you I make certain everyone knows what I want,” he said dryly. “No one’s complained before.”
“Maybe they know what you want,” she said. “But not what you’re thinking.”
He studied her. “And knowing what I’m thinking is important to you?”
“Yes.”
He was silent a moment, and then a smile lit his face, transforming its hardness with rare warmth. “Then I’ll try to give you what you want. Ask and you shall receive.”
Why hadn’t she realized how attractive he was? she wondered as she gazed at him. He possessed none of Ricardo’s startling good looks, yet when he smiled, it was as if he gave a rare gift of untold riches. She was suddenly breathless again, and the tingling between her thighs shocked her. What was happening to her? She wasn’t stupid enough not to realize her response to him was intensifying with each passing moment, but she couldn’t seem to stop the tide. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. As confusing and tumultuous as were the feelings Fletch generated within her, they at least made her feel vibrantly alive and pushed back the fear waiting in the shadows.
Fletch was looking at her inquiringly.
“Well?”
She stepped closer to the window and drew in the warm, sweetly scented air. “I won’t take advantage of your offer at the moment, but I have another favor to ask when you leave St. Pierre. Will you make sure Luz is given the help she needs? The other refugees will be all right, I think. We have sympathizers in Barbados who will provide funds and help them resettle, but Luz—”
“Luz is the child you spoke to at the helicopter? She seemed very upset. What special help does she need?”
“She was gang-raped at the Abbey.” Samantha continued to look down at the lake below. “It’s a common interrogation method. They thought her father had information, and they used her to get it. Do you know what that can do to a child?”