But not once did she ask him why he killed two people he was supposed to be protecting.
Maybe she didn’t want to know. Maybe she didn’t believe him. Maybe she hadn’t quite understood.
“I assume at least one of those deaths was an accident.”
The question slapped him. Or maybe she’d been waiting for the perfect moment, which, evidently, had arrived.
She stood at the edge of the Jacuzzi, her toe pointed so she could let the bubbles tickle her toes but not wet her dress.
“You should get in,” he said.
She flicked some bubbles with her toes. “I thought we were camping at Tom’s house tonight,” she said. “I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
A slight smile pulled. “Like I said, you should get in.”
“Excellent subject-changing technique, Luke.” She lifted her foot, precariously and perfectly balanced on the other one, perched like a flamingo holding wine. “But getting me naked and in the Jacuzzi will not stop me from wanting to know.”
“And here I was admiring the fact that you hadn’t asked.”
“Why would you admire that?”
“I was adding it to the list.”
“What list?”
“Of things I really like about you.”
“Flirting won’t get me to stop asking, either.” She lowered her foot and put it back in the water, closing her eyes and sighing with pleasure and want. “I’ve waited long enough. And I know you want to tell me.”
Damn it, why could she read his thoughts? He did want to tell her, but he hadn’t realized it yet.
“Hang on.” He pushed up from his chair and went inside, hearing her deep sigh when he left. In the master bath, he gathered the fluffy white robe hanging on the back door and brought it back to the patio. On the way out, he touched the electronic pad of light switches, one by one turning off every light in the villa and the soft blue beams in the pool.
“Dark out here,” she said as he stepped out.
“That’s the plan.”
“You think I’ll strip in the dark with you watching?”
“I think”—he held up the robe like a curtain—“that you can slide into this, take that dress off, and slip into the hot tub, where you will be shrouded in darkness and a thick coat of bubbles. And by doing so, you will be comfortable, safe, and happy.”
“And you will have me at a naked disadvantage while you spill your secrets.”
He just smiled, because what else could he do with a woman who knew him better than he knew himself?
“Turn around,” she ordered as she tugged at her top.
He lifted the robe higher and turned his head away, listening to the rustle of her dress, a whisper of air as it hit the cool bricks that surrounded the pool.
His blood stirred as he thought about how easily he could turn and admire her some more. The brush of silk against skin made him imagine her stepping out of panties. Oh, man. She grabbed the robe from him, but he stayed turned, eyes closed.
“Go over to the chaise,” she ordered.
He did, sitting back where he had been and not looking until he heard a sigh of utter contentment over the rumble of the bubbles.
“Oh, this is heavenly,” she said, nothing but a dark head visible over the dancing bubbles. If he peered harder, once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he might be able to see the watery view of her breasts, but not much else.
His mouth went bone dry as he prayed for that night vision to come to life.
But first he’d have to make some confessions. He took a deep drink of merlot, bracing for the inevitable demand to—
Something soft hit him in the face. A black thong.
“Are you going to tell me now?”
He closed his fingers around the tiny piece of silk, the faintest whiff of woman way more of a hit to his brain than the wine. Threading the material through his fingers, he set the thong on his lap and smiled at her.
“Only because you asked so sweetly.”
He drank again, draining the glass, considering going inside to open the second bottle, but she’d left her glass on the table, half-full, and he didn’t need to be drunk to do this. Did he?
“Luke?”
He nodded, waving the underwear in a half-hearted plea for a minute to at least start the story right. “My job was to guard the family of the prefect in French Guiana.”
She sat up enough to show the rise of her breasts, momentarily forgetting her nakedness. “Why exactly did they need to be guarded?”
“Because of the gold.”
“What?”
He nodded, understanding her surprise. “There’s an illegal and highly dangerous gold trade in Guiana. The French think the gold belongs to them, but the locals, the Wayampi, feel differently. It’s complicated. And deadly for so many people.”
Neither of them spoke while he took a few seconds to accept that he was going to do this. He was going to tell her everything.
“Prefect Georges Pacquet was appointed by the French president to more or less keep order in the country. Madame Pacquet chose to remain in France in their Paris apartment, but Cerisse accompanied her father to the rough and tumble jungle of French Guiana.”
“Cerisse? That’s a beautiful name. Was she beautiful?”
He smiled at the interruption and nodded. “She had blond hair and blue eyes and a nice body.” Nice being the understatement of the year.
“You like that type?”
“I found her to be attractive in a California-girl way, yes.”
“I have California in my blood,” she said with a slightly teasing tone. “Miwok are from Sacramento.”
He looked through the bubbles and steam, took in her wet hair, some strands sticking to her face, which was flushed from the heat. She looked like a witch, all right, a beautiful, sexy, fiery witch bubbling in her own cauldron. And it took every ounce of strength not to leap up, strip down, and climb in.
“Let’s just say my type has recently changed.”
He saw her close her eyes and fight a smile.
“But, yes, she was quite beautiful and a bit impetuous.” He wasn’t sure why he included that character trait, except that maybe it let him off the hook a little.
“And you said you loved her.”
“I…thought I did. Yes,” he corrected. “I did.” So, so much. Crazy, hard, achy, mood-altering love. But after she died, that just felt stupid and foolish, so over the years, he’d convinced himself he couldn’t have loved her. Because that would just make him a blind idiot.
“What happened?”
“Her father was on the take in a big, bad way,” he said simply. “He had everyone in his pocket. The garimpeiros, mostly.”
“The whatempeiros?”
“The Brazilians who came illegally over the border to steal gold from the mines. There were others from Suriname, too. And, of course, the Wayampi.”
She sat up a little. “Natives?”
“Native to that region of French Guiana, but they are actually French citizens. Not a huge tribe, just a few thousand villagers, but they have a lucrative business supporting the Brazilians and Surinamers in the mines, paid in gold.”
“How did they support the miners?”
He gave a dry snort. “All kinds of ways, but one of them was to let the smallest children into the tiny crevices to dig for gold.”
She made a face, and his heart dropped. She didn’t know the half of it.
“Anyway, the prefect was paid to keep his mouth shut and let them do their thing.”
“And why is the Foreign Legion there?” she asked.
“To stop the gold mining, to tear down the little villages that popped up around new mines, to confiscate tools, and arrest anyone caught mining. That’s what my regiment was doing while I pulled the prefect guard duty.”
“And fell hard for the prefect’s daughter,” she surmised. Correctly. “How old was she?”
“Twenty-four,” he said.
“Did the
prefect know about your relationship?”
“Most certainly. And used it to his advantage.” Tried to use it to save his own life, in fact. Luke pushed up, repositioning himself as if he could get away from the uncomfortable memories. But he couldn’t.
“How so?”
“He needed me to do a job for him,” he said, a low grade of heat rising as he thought about how heinous that job was. “You see, he was a double-, triple-, even a quadruple-dipper, and those kind of people generally meet their untimely demises. Essentially, he’d been caught taking far more than his share of gold profits, and one group of the more aggressive garimpeiros had a plan to do something about it.”
“How?”
“Kill him.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, whoa.” He puffed out a breath. “He knew what was going on and got Cerisse to convince me that he needed help. He knew where they were mining that day and decided he’d kill them before they killed him.” He closed his eyes, remembering the hole in the ground and how they’d lowered kids—the smallest but strongest—to do the dirtiest of work. “He sent me to do the job.”
“To kill the gold miners?” Her voice rose in disbelief. “Why?”
“Because I was his bodyguard, Arielle. My job was to stop any threats to the prefect or his family.”
“By killing them?”
“Well, if someone lunged at him while he was making a speech or raised a gun to assassinate him, I sure as hell would have shot to kill.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
No, it wasn’t. “The man I was protecting demanded that I drop a grenade into a hundred-foot-deep mining cave, where about eighteen illegal miners—including at least six very small Wayampi children—were working.”
She sucked in a breath loud enough to hear over the bubbling of the Jacuzzi.
“And his daughter, terrified for her father’s life, agreed that I should.” No, she demanded, screaming that if he loved her, he would do this.
“Really? I mean, wasn’t there an answer other than killing innocent children?”
“You’d think.” He shifted again, then stood to stretch his legs. “I’ll tell you, Arielle, gold makes people lose their shit.” He turned from her, walking toward the wrought-iron railing to look out at the water. “Did you know that the nucleus of the gold atom is larger than most elements? There’s something about the chemistry of gold, I once read, that when light hits it and then bounces back to the human eye to strike the retinal wall, there is a pleasure message sent to the brain.”
“And here I thought it was because gold powers our economy.”
“Other way around,” he corrected. “Gold has no intrinsic value except what we place on it, and ancient alchemists believed that it was part of heaven. Did you know that?”
“Careful, Mr. Rational. You’re starting to sound like me.”
He gripped the railing with one hand and balled up the silky thong he still held with the other.
“Finish your story,” she prodded.
“I couldn’t do it.”
“Of course you couldn’t. So what did you do?”
“I sneaked out and warned the miners. I drove out to the mine at night, when I knew they were working. I knew it could cost me my bodyguard position if I got caught, maybe even get me kicked out of the regiment and off to a shittier assignment.”
“Would that have been so horrible?”
“I didn’t want to leave Cerisse,” he confessed. “And, I really liked the job, best I’d ever had in the Legion…until this turn of events.”
He grew quiet, thinking of the night not unlike this one. Cool, moonlit, the jungle floor reeking of earth and trouble. He’d found the mine and sat in his Jeep, waiting for one of the miners to climb out and approach him.
He’d heard the engine of another vehicle and turned, catching Cerisse’s shiny blond hair reflected above the headlights.
“They came after me, Prefect Pacquet at the wheel and Cerisse next to him, eyes blazing and…and…a grenade in her hand.”
Behind him, he heard another soft intake of breath and a splash. “What?”
He didn’t turn, not wanting to see her disgust and disbelief that he could love a woman like that. Because he had loved her. He really had.
“She jumped out of the Jeep and ran to me, holding out that weapon like Eve offering the apple.”
“Did you take it?”
“Of course.” He fisted the silk thong again, remembering the feel of that deadly device against the palm of his hand. “I didn’t want her to throw it in the mine.”
Would she have? He’d never know.
Another splash. “And?”
“And her father came at us with a .357 Magnum in his hand, demanding I throw the grenade.”
And then the sound of a small voice, Taka’s voice, calling out in the chopped sounds of the native language, his little hand appearing at the top of the mine. He could hear Cerisse’s French demands, shrill and relentless.
Tu veux que mon père te tue?
Yes, at that instant, he did want her father to kill him. Death would have been better than making that decision. Much better. But, then, she might have thrown the fucking grenade in the hole after he was dead.
He closed his eyes, the whole scene playing over and over in his head. Cerisse rushing back to get closer to her father. The flash of light. The explosion. The shot. Taka’s scream and…
“And there was a little boy coming out of the mine.”
He heard Arielle’s soft gasp, and nodded as if to echo the sentiment.
“I knew someone was going to die. Me. The kid. The old man. Cerisse. Someone.” He grunted softly when two hands landed on his back.
“What happened, Luke?”
“I threw the grenade in the opposite direction, hoping it would divert everyone and stop the madness. But the prefect raised his gun at me, and I moved on instinct, going for my weapon. As I pulled it out, he fired and I fired back, but…” He couldn’t finish.
“But what?”
“But the old man grabbed his daughter to use her as a human shield, so fast I didn’t have time to stop my trigger finger, and the bullet went through her and into his chest. They both died almost instantly.”
He let his head drop, the shame and anguish and self-loathing that eroded his soul on a daily basis burning in his gut right now.
“Luke.” She tried to turn him around, but he stayed stiff, refusing to meet her gaze. “Luke, you saved those children and those natives.”
He squeezed his eyes, not surprised they stung. “But the prefect’s bullet hit the boy just as he emerged from the mine, a five-year-old boy. A boy who will never walk again,” he ground out, hating the tears that stung his eyes. “So I killed the two people I was supposed to be protecting and ruined a child’s life.”
“Luke!” She tried again to force him around, but he couldn’t stand to look at her right then. “That man wanted to kill children, and she was going to help! And the boy lived.”
“Fortunately, that’s how the Legion saw it, too,” he said. “France wanted to keep it very quiet. So there was no recrimination for me, but I quit the Legion the very day I could.” He sighed. “And I haven’t stopped working one minute since then.”
“Working?” Her voice rose with confusion. “To take your mind off it?”
“To make money. I have to have a steady, constant income, Arielle, because I support Takalawe and his family. I moved them out of the gold mines and set them up on a small farm just outside the village. Taka has a wheelchair and…” Behind him, he felt her shudder.
Turning, he saw her face wet with tears, her lip quivering as she fought a sob. “You’re doing that?”
“Of course,” he said. “He would have died without help, and the family—”
“And that’s why you have to have a job.”
“Always. I will never let that family want anything, regardless of where I live. I didn’t know any other trade or busin
ess but building because it’s pretty much half of what Legionnaires do. Anything else would take too much training or education, and I don’t have time or enough savings because…”
“Because you take care of…Taka?”
He nodded, fighting a smile. “He’s a great kid, too.”
A little whimper escaped her throat as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her tear-soaked cheek against his shoulder and her dripping wet body against his clothes. “Grandma Good Bear would love you.”
He smiled against her hair, the compliment like balm on his wretched conscience. “I don’t see it that way.”
She looked up at him. “Which is the most awesome part.” She gave him a squeeze. “I’m really sorry you had to make that decision and those people died, and sorry that soured you on trust and love, and sad that little boy is in a wheelchair.”
He was glad there was no but. “Thanks, I am, too.”
“And I’m really glad you haven’t been with a woman since then.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. “But I didn’t trust myself or my judgment after that. I don’t have your intuition for what’s right and wrong, what’s good and bad, who’s meant for me and who’s not.”
“I have enough intuition for both of us.” She smiled up at him. “You are a hero.” She lifted on her toes and put her mouth over his, the kiss tender and full of promise and healing. “And you know why you saw that woman’s true colors and you had to stop her from killing children and wait and wait and wait to be with another woman? Do you know why?”
“Because I was meant to find you?”
She sighed and smiled and closed her eyes. “I wish that hadn’t been a question but a statement.”
So did he. “How can we know for sure?”
“I already do.”
He felt his heart skip around, wanting so much for her to be right. “You know.”
She nodded. “I’ve never been more sure. Luke, I am The One for you, and you are The One for me, and right now we are going to make love, and it will be absolutely laden with significance and wonder, and the universe will sing for happiness because we found each other or…”