Escape Out of Darkness

by Anne Stuart

  “You pull your weight, Pulaski. I know I can count on you if need be,” she said carefully. “I … I appreciate your help.”

  “Sure you do, princess,” he said, much amused. “I’ll keep my place next time.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. Her honesty was her major attribute, and she wasn’t about to lie to him to assuage her own neuroses. They were in an extremely tenuous situation, and she needed to feel in control if she was going to get them safely out of it. And if Mack’s feelings were hurt, that was too damned bad.

  But he didn’t look like a man suffering from wounded feelings. He lay there in the sand, entirely at ease, as if there was no place else he’d rather be. Maggie could only wish she felt the same way.

  Her jumpsuit had long since dried, and she’d made an effort at brushing the sand from it. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night, and having sand ride up her backbone wouldn’t help matters. The sun had long ago withdrawn its warmth from the land, and Maggie shivered.

  “Maggie.” His ruined voice floated across the night breeze. “Come here.”

  She looked up at him suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Because it’s late, we both need sleep. It’s getting chilly, and a little body warmth will come in handy, considering we don’t have anything we can use for blankets.”

  “Pulaski …” she said warningly.

  “For Christ’s sake, Maggie, I’m not putting the make on you,” he said, irritation finally breaking through his usual calm. “I’m tired and I’m cold and I want to go to sleep. And I’m not going to be able to sleep with you sitting there, miles away, brooding and shivering. Come here, or I’m damned well going to come over there.”

  She sat utterly still, glaring at him. It made perfect sense, of course. And she was pretty sure he wasn’t about to rip off her jumpsuit and have his wicked way with her. Most of the time he barely seemed aware that she was female. Of course there were moments when an odd sort of sexual heat had flared between them, but those moments had been effectively wiped out by her cutting tongue. She’d done it before, she could do it again. And God, she was getting colder by the minute.

  She pulled herself to her feet, moving around the small fire and kneeling beside him. “All right,” she muttered wryly. “I’m trusting you to control your animal passions, though I know the temptation is great. Where do you want me?”

  There was a light in his hazel eyes that told her he was considering a highly improper answer. She could come up with her own reply, and it was a very inviting position. But she remained kneeling, waiting for him.

  Mack restrained himself nobly. “Between me and the fire, since you’re clearly freezing to death,” he said. “I may wake you up when I put more wood on it, but I figure them’s the breaks.”

  “It’s not that cold a night,” she found herself saying. “You could let the fire die down.”

  “I was wrong about the moonlight, Maggie. If the fire died down, it would be dark.” His voice was gentle.

  She wished she could tell him not to bother. Just when she was trying to regain control, her old, irrational fears crept out again. “All right,” she said, stretching out on the sand beside him, not touching him. “Wake me if you have to.”

  He grinned down at her. “What is this, a high school dance where the partners have to stay five inches apart? We aren’t going to share much warmth this way, Maggie.” And he pulled her across the sand into the shelter of his warm body.

  She automatically stiffened, wondering if she’d read him wrong. But his hands were impersonal, holding her against him as if she were a child. Slowly she began to relax. What was she being such an idiot for, anyway? What would be wrong with sharing a little more than body warmth on a deserted beach? What was wrong with making love to a man she found very attractive?

  But she wasn’t about to talk herself into it. Lying in the shelter of his big, strong body, she had to admit that she wanted him, and wanted him quite badly. Maybe more than she’d ever wanted anyone before. And despite Mack’s nonthreatening, laid-back attitude, she suspected that he wanted her too.

  But she didn’t dare give in. They were safe enough on this beach, but if they made love now, they’d make love again. And again and again, every night they spent together, and then it wouldn’t be as safe.

  She’d had enough of failed relationships, of going into them blindly, openheartedly, only to have the men leave when they began to feel threatened or bored. It had been months since she and Peter had decided to go their separate ways, romantically, and she wasn’t eager to trade her peace of mind for another round of passion and pain.

  So Mack and his considerable physical attractions were going to have to be ignored. It was a good, sensible resolution, and she released her pent-up breath, relaxing against him.

  “I don’t think I like that decision,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Hmm?” she questioned sleepily.

  “Never mind. I just got the impression I lost that round.”

  She didn’t even bother to marvel at his uncanny ability to read her mind. He was doing it far too often—the longer they were together the better they knew each other’s thoughts. It was one of the hazards of getting close to someone, but at least she’d avoid the other hazards. “You did,” she murmured. “G’night, Pulaski.”

  “Good night, Maggie.” His voice was deep, raspy, and amused. “Pleasant dreams.”

  They weren’t. They were nightmares, memories from some of the worst times in her life. Suddenly she was sixteen again, alone in the darkness, with rough hands all over her, pawing at her, pulling away her clothes, cruel hands that she couldn’t slap away, couldn’t escape from, could only lie there and cry. …

  “Maggie? Wake up, Maggie.” The hands weren’t on her breasts, pulling her clothes off her. They were strong, gentle hands on her shoulders, shaking her awake, out of the deep morass of dream and memory that had torn through her sleep and her defenses.

  She opened her eyes. The flames of the newly stoked fire were flickering up into the inky black sky, and the man kneeling over her was in shadows. But she knew immediately that he was no threat, and she felt the panic and tension drain from her body. “I’m awake,” she said. “I’m okay.”

  As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she could see his face, the tenderness and concern in his eyes as they stared down at her. Slowly he sank down beside her, gathering her body against his own. “You want to sleep, Maggie?” he whispered in her ear. “Or do you want to tell me about it?”

  She shrugged against him, but her hands reached up of their own accord and clutched the rough khaki shirt in unconscious pleading. His body was warm and strong and curiously soothing beneath her fingers. Her voice was at variance with her hands, cool and composed. “There’s not a whole lot to say. It happens to a lot of girls. The wrong man at the wrong time, in the wrong way.” She waited for him to make some response to that, but he said nothing, just lay there, holding her, waiting.

  “Except,” she went on, unable to stop herself, “in my case it was my stepfather, when I was sixteen. And he wasn’t completely to blame—I had a mad crush on him and I suppose he thought I was old enough to know what I wanted. It was a very dark night, and there was no light at all in the deserted pool house. And he was too stoned to realize when I said no, I meant it.”

  There was a long silence, and Mack’s hold on her tightened imperceptibly, in wordless comfort. “What happened?”

  “My mother divorced him, of course. She’d been planning to anyway, but when she heard what happened to me that night she kicked him out of the house. She’d already caught him in bed with another young actor, and she’d been willing to overlook that. But in my case her long-submerged maternal instincts came out and he was handed his walking papers.”

  “Another actor?”

  “My stepfather was catholic in his sexual tastes. He took on all shapes, sizes, sexes, and relationships,” she said bitterly. “I’m just glad
he died of a drug overdose before he could get his hands on my stepsister.”

  “Who was your stepfather?”

  Maggie laughed, a raw bitter sound that scraped her throat. “I had three. There was my father, Count Alexander Lagerfeldt, then Sidney Zimmerman, a banker, Deke Robinson, the heartthrob of the fifties, and finally Peter Malcolm, my mother’s true love.”

  “How come you don’t use your father’s name?”

  She shrugged again. “Sybil changed it to hers before I had much say in the matter. I was never close to my father—there never seemed much reason to go to the bother of changing it back.”

  “And it was Deke Robinson in the pool house.”

  “Deke Robinson in the pool house,” she agreed. “Mother sent me to the best therapists. I survived the traumatic experience and I’m very healthy sexually. And I’d conquered my fear of the dark long ago.”

  “So what happened?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It started again about a year ago. It built up slowly, and I haven’t had time to deal with it. I know if I just have some time I can face it and it’ll go away. I hate to be at the mercy of it,” she said passionately.

  “I’m sure you do. Are you still healthy sexually, or did that come back to haunt you too?” He said it in a light, bantering voice, and she responded in kind, grateful for the gentle teasing that was no threat at all.

  “That’s for me to know.”

  “And me to find out?” he replied.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “I’m sure you didn’t. Nevertheless, it’s going to come to that, sooner or later. You know that, Maggie. Don’t you?”

  “Do I?” She was fencing, wary.

  “You do. But now is neither the time nor the place. I’m perfectly willing to wait until the time and place are right. Are you going to run, Maggie?”

  She took a deep breath. “No. You don’t scare me.”

  He laughed, a silent expelling of sweet breath against her face. “That’s good. Because there are times when you scare the hell out of me.”

  She smiled, a smug cat-that-got-the-canary smile that he couldn’t see in the dark, and snuggled closer. “Keep it that way, Pulaski,” she said. And willed herself back to sleep.

  Maggie stamped with all her might on the clutch pedal, shoved the shrieking gear shift into third, and continued bouncing down the rutted road, a brilliant smile on her face, her tawny blond hair streaming out behind her. Her sense of well-being was completely out of proportion to her accomplishments, but she couldn’t resist feeling absolutely wonderful and at peace with the world.

  She’d woken up early, at first light, her bones and muscles cramped from sleeping on the hard sand. Mack slept on, and in the early morning light he looked as all men look when they sleep—young and vulnerable. Pulling herself into a sitting position, she’d stayed and watched him for long moments. He was a good man, Mack “Snake” Pulaski. Good and kind and generous. And sexy. Lying there with his shirt half open, his breathing deep and even, the stubble of beard rough on her hand as she reached out and touched him.

  But she left him to sleep and headed off down what looked like it had once been a road.

  It was forty-five minutes before she came to what passed for civilization. Four or five adobe buildings clustered together around the rough road, and the chickens and dogs outnumbered the curious inhabitants. Maggie had always had a facility for language, and it took her little time to be presented to the patriarch of the village and to ascertain that they were indeed in Honduras, though about as far from the border and the various camps of marauding rebels as they could be.

  At first transportation was a complete impossibility. Once, however, the jefe accepted the fact that he had to deal with an inferior norteamericana woman, and once he caught sight of the always acceptable norteamericano money, impossibilities became easily accomplished.

  And here she was, an hour and a half later, bouncing down the narrowing track, back to Mack, in a battered four-wheel-drive vehicle, a sack of food in the back, the sun beating down, the wind in her hair. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. If she’d pinpointed their location and secured a running vehicle this easily, anything was possible.

  She’d paid careful attention to the landmarks on her trek outward, and the distinctive triple palm tree signaled their campsite from the night before.

  She pulled up as close to the beach as she could, put the balky vehicle in neutral, since she had dubious confidence in her ability to restart it, and leapt from the Jeep, racing out toward the ocean to show Mack her triumph.

  But he was nowhere in sight. Last night’s campfire was a circle of charred cinders, and she could see the indentation in the sand where the two of them had slept. She whirled around, but there was no sign of him anywhere on the deserted beach. She was alone—abandoned. He hadn’t trusted her ability to get him out of this mess. Damn him, she thought, feeling oddly close to the tears she never shed. Tears of anger, she told herself, feeling bereft. Tears of rage.

  ten

  “That’s a hell of a vehicle, Maggie.” Mack’s voice came from directly behind her. “Where did you conjure it up from?”

  “Where were you?” She turned, her body radiating disapproval. “I thought you’d taken off.” She kept her voice completely even, unmoved by the fact that he was standing there dripping seawater and stark naked.

  He shrugged. “I thought the same about you, Maggie. Fortunately, I had enough trust to wait around and see if you were going to return.”

  She bit back the scathing reply. “I would have thought you’d had enough salt water yesterday,” she said instead, running her eyes over his body with studied calm. If the turquoise Jockey shorts had been distracting, this was much worse. She was going to dream about his damned, beautiful body, she knew she was.

  He shook back his long wet hair and smiled at her sweetly. “It’s very refreshing.” And he started pulling on the clothes he carried over his arm. “You ought to try it,” he said.

  “What I’d like to try is a long hot shower in a modern hotel,” she replied, noticing that some of the tension left her as the clothes covered his body. She was becoming more and more vulnerable to him, and it was a vulnerability she couldn’t afford. “We’re in Honduras, but we’re about as far from where we want to be as possible. If only Van Zandt had his damned camp in Costa Rica,” she grumbled.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” she echoed, incensed. “Haven’t you looked at the horizon?” She gestured extravagantly. “This country is nothing but mountains and ridges and steep little valleys. Its roads are nonexistent, its population sparse and suspicious. We are going to have a hell of a time making it to Tegucigalpa.”

  “Where?”

  “Tegucigalpa. Capital of Honduras, center of rebel activities. That’s where I find out exactly where Van Zandt is, and that’s where the nearest Holiday Inn is. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies, and I figure on these roads it’ll take us three days.”

  Mack was fastening the buttons of his much-abused chambray shirt. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  They traveled in almost complete silence for the first hour. Maggie was concentrating on her driving. Mack was concentrating first on the provisions she’d conned from the villagers and then on the shredded Texaco map he’d found in the glove compartment that was chock-full of empty shell cases from a weapon that was undoubtedly the size of an elephant gun.

  “You still haven’t told me how you managed to get this Jeep,” Mack said finally. “And the food, for that matter.”

  “I found a village a little to the west of our beach.”

  “And how did you persuade them to part with such a prized possession? I thought your money reserves were running low, and somehow I wouldn’t think a remote village on the east coast of Honduras would take Visa.”

  “Nope. They did, however, take our gun.” She’d been trying to avoid
her own doubts as to the wisdom of that unavoidable piece of barter, and Mack’s reaction only reinforced her own.

  “They did what?”

  “I traded them one hundred dollars of American money and the gun. We were out of bullets. It wouldn’t have done us much good.”

  “We could have bought ammunition, Maggie. Even without bullets we could have scared someone off with it. Or are you prepared to catch bullets in your teeth, Superwoman?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He was muttering to himself under his breath. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Trust me.” Her voice sounded completely confident, hiding her very real doubts as the jungle around them seemed to thicken to her paranoid eyes.

  “Oh, I trust you, Maggie. With my life.” If the sound of his drawling voice wasn’t completely reassuring, Maggie chose to ignore it. He flipped the crumpled map back, folding it over and laying it in his lap. “I think we ought to head back toward La Ceiba, catch the highway that goes through San Pedro Sula, and then on to Tegucigalpa. It’s about as direct as we can get, it has the advantage of major cities and probably adequate hotels, and it would cut our trip in half.”

  Maggie bit back the odd little twinge of annoyance and relief. She hadn’t had time to more than glance at the map—she hadn’t even considered the possibility of heading back up the north coast to the bustling little resort area of La Ceiba. But paved roads and a bed for the night sounded almost too good to be true. “What do you suggest we use for money? I only have two hundred dollars left. And as you already mentioned, Visa isn’t ready currency around here.”

  “It will be in the larger towns like San Pedro Sula,” he replied. “Don’t you think?”