by Nora Roberts
She felt her stomach groan. “Eat a banana,” she suggested and tossed him one. “Any idea how we’re going to replace our water?”
“I think we might slip down to the village below in the morning.” He blew out a cloud of smoke. The only thing that was missing, he decided, was a nice hot tub and a pretty, scented blonde to scrub his back. It would be one of the first things he saw to when the treasure was in his hands.
Whitney crossed her legs under her and chose another piece of fruit. “Do you think it’s safe?”
He shrugged and finished off his coffee. It was always more a matter of need than safety. “We need water, and we might bargain for some meat.”
“Please, you’ll get me excited.”
“The way I figure it, Dimitri knew the train was going to Tamatave, so that’s where he’ll be looking for us. By the time we get there, I’m hoping he’s looking someplace else.”
She bit into the fruit. “So he doesn’t have any idea where you’re ultimately going?”
“No more than you do, sugar.” He hoped. But the itch between his shoulder blades had yet to let up. Taking a last deep drag, Doug flicked the stub of the cigarette into the fire. “As far as I know, he’s never seen the papers, at least not all of them.”
“If he’s never seen them, how did he find out about the treasure?”
“Faith, sugar, same as you.”
She lifted a brow at his smirk. “This Dimitri doesn’t strike me as a man of faith.”
“Instinct then. There was a man named Whitaker who figured to sell the papers to the highest bidder and make a nice profit without having to dig for it. The idea of a treasure, a documented one, caught Dimitri’s imagination. I told you he had one of those.”
“Indeed. Whitaker …” Turning the name over in her mind, Whitney forgot to stir. “George Allan Whitaker?”
“The same.” Doug blew out smoke. “Know him?”
“Casually. I dated one of his nephews. It’s thought he made his money from bootlegging, among other things.”
“Smuggling, among other things, especially in the last ten years or so. Remember the Geraldi sapphires that were stolen, let’s see, in seventy-six?”
She frowned a minute. “No.”
“You should keep up with current events, sugar. Read that book I lifted in D.C.”
“Missing Gems Through the Ages?” Whitney moved her shoulders. “I prefer fiction when I read.”
“Broaden your outlook. You can learn anything there is to learn from books.”
“Really?” Interested, she studied him again. “So you like to read?”
“Next to sex, it’s my favorite pastime. Anyway, the Geraldi sapphires. The sweetest set of rocks since the crown jewels.”
Impressed, she lifted a brow. “You stole them?”
“No.” He settled his shoulders against the wall. “I was on a downswing in seventy-six. Didn’t have the fare to get to Rome. But I’ve got connections. So did Whitaker.”
“He stole them?” Her eyes widened as she thought of the skinny old man.
“Arranged,” Doug corrected. “Once he hit sixty Whitaker didn’t like getting his hands dirty. He liked to pretend he was an expert in archeology. Didn’t you catch any of his shows on public television?”
So he watched PBS too. A well-rounded thief. “No, but I heard he wanted to be a land-locked Jacques Cousteau.”
“Not enough class. Still, he got pretty good ratings for a couple of years. Bullshitting a lot of hotshots with big bank accounts into financing digs. He had a real smooth game going.”
“My father said he was full of shit,” Whitney said idly.
“Your father’s got more on the ball than fudge ripple. Anyway, Whitaker played middleman for a lot of rocks and art objects that crossed from one side of the Atlantic to the other. About a year ago, he conned some English lady out of a bunch of old documents and correspondence.”
Her interest peaked. “Our papers?”
He didn’t care for the plural pronoun but shrugged it off. “The lady considered it all part of art or history—cultural value. She’d written a lot of books on stuff like that. There was some general involved who’d nearly worked a deal with her, but it seemed Whitaker knew more about flattering matrons. And Whitaker had a more basic train of thought. Greed. Trouble was, he was broke and had to do some campaigning for funds for the expedition.”
“That’s where Dimitri came in.”
“Exactly. Like I said, Whitaker threw the bidding open. It was supposed to be a business deal. Partners,” he added with a slow smile. “Dimitri decided he didn’t like the competitive market and made an alternate proposition.” Doug crossed his ankles and peeled the banana. “Whitaker could let him have the papers, and Dimitri’d let Whitaker keep all his fingers and toes.”
Whitney took another nibble of fruit but it wasn’t easy to swallow. “Sounds like a forceful businessman.”
“Yeah, Dimitri loves to wheel and deal. Trouble was, he used a little too much persuasion on Whitaker. Apparently the old man had a heart problem. Keeled over before Dimitri had the papers or his jollies—I’m not sure which pissed him off more. An unfortunate accident, or so Dimitri said when he hired me to steal them.” Doug bit into the banana and savored it. “He went into graphic detail on how he’d planned to change Whitaker’s mind—for the purpose of putting the fear of God into me so I wouldn’t get any ideas myself.” He remembered the tiny pair of silver pliers Dimitri had fondled during the interview. “It worked.”
“But you took them anyway.”
“Only after he’d double-crossed me,” he told her over another bite of banana. “If he’d played it straight, he’d have the papers. I’d’ve taken my fee and a little vacation in Cancún.”
“But this way, you have them. And no opportunity should go undeveloped.”
“You got it, sister. Jesus Christ!” Doug bolted up and scrambled to the fire. In automatic defense, Whitney curled up her legs, expecting anything from a slimy snake to a hideous spider. “Damn, woman, how much rice did you put in here?”
“I—” She broke off and stared as he grabbed at the pan. Rice was flowing over the sides like lava. “Just a couple handfuls,” she said as she bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“My ass.”
“Well, four.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as he dug for a plate. “Or five.”
“Four or five,” he muttered while scooping rice onto the plates. “How the hell did I end up in a cave in Madagascar with ‘I Love Lucy’?”
“I told you I couldn’t cook,” she reminded him as she studied the brownish, sticky mass on the plate. “I simply proved it.”
“In spades.” When he heard her muffled chuckle, he glanced over. She sat Indian style, her skirt and blouse filthy, the ribbon at the end of her braid dangling free. He remembered how she’d looked the first time he’d seen her, cool and sleek in a white fedora and lush furs. Why was it she looked every bit as appealing now? “You laugh,” he tossed back, shoving a plate at her. “You’re going to have to eat your share.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.” With the fork she’d used for cooking, she poked into the rice. Bravely, he thought, she took the first bite. The flavor was nutty and not altogether unpleasant. With a shrug, Whitney ate more. Though she’d never been in the position of being a beggar, she’d heard they couldn’t be choosers. “Don’t be a baby, Douglas,” she told him. “If we can get our hands on some mushrooms and almonds, we’ll fix it your way next time.” With the enthusiasm of a child over a bowl of ice cream, she dug in. Without fully realizing it, Whitney had had her first experience with real hunger.
Eating at a slower pace, and with less enthusiasm, Doug watched her. He’d been hungry before, and figured he’d be hungry again. But she … Perhaps she was dining on rice off a tin plate, in a skirt that was streaked with grime, but class shone through. He found it fascinating, and intriguing enough to make it worthwhile discovering if it always would. The
partnership, he mused, might be more interesting than he’d bargained for. For as long as it lasted.
“Douglas, what about the woman who gave Whitaker the map?”
“What about her?”
“Well, what happened to her?”
He swallowed a lump of rice. “Butrain.”
When she glanced up, he saw the fear come and go in her eyes and was glad. Better for both of them if she understood this was the big leagues. But her hands were steady when she reached for the coffee.
“I see. So you’re the only one alive who’s seen those papers.”
“That’s right, sugar.”
“He’ll want you dead, and me too.”
“That’s also right.”
“But I haven’t seen them.”
Casually, Doug dug for more rice. “If he gets his hands on you, you can’t tell him anything.”
She waited a minute, studying him. “You’re a first-class bastard, Doug.”
This time he grinned because he’d heard the light trace of respect. “I like first class, Whitney. I’m going to live there the rest of my life.”
Two hours later, he was cursing her again, though only to himself. They’d let the fire burn down to embers so that the light in the cave was dim and red. Somewhere, deeper, water dripped in a slow, musical plop. It reminded him of a pricey, innovative little bordello in New Orleans.
They were both exhausted, both aching from the demands of a very long, very arduous day. Doug stripped off his shoes with his only thought one of the pleasures of unconsciousness. He never doubted he’d sleep like a rock.
“You know how to work that thing?” he asked idly as he opened his own bag.
“I think I can handle a zipper, thanks.”
Then he made the mistake of glancing over—and not looking away again.
Without any show of self-consciousness, Whitney drew off her blouse. He remembered just how thin the material of her teddy had looked in the morning light. When she pulled off her skirt, his mouth watered.
No, she wasn’t self-conscious, she was nearly comatose with fatigue. It never occurred to her to make a play at modesty. Even if she’d thought it out, Whitney would have considered the teddy adequate cover. She wore a fraction of that on a public beach. Her only thought was of getting horizontal, of closing her eyes, and of oblivion.
If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have enjoyed the discomfort she was causing in the region of Doug’s loins. It might have given her some pleasure to know his muscles had tensed as he watched the subtle flicker of firelight play over her skin as she bent to unzip her bag. She’d have gotten pure feminine satisfaction knowing he sucked in his breath as the thin material rose up at her thighs and pulled over her bottom with her movements.
Without giving it a thought, she climbed into the sleeping bag and pulled up the zipper. Nothing was visible but a cloud of pale hair untangled from the braid. With a sigh, she pillowed her head on her hands. “Good night, Douglas.”
“Yeah.” He pulled off his shirt, then gripped the edge of adhesive and held his breath. Ruthlessly he ripped and the fire snaked across his chest. Whitney never budged as his curse bounced off the cave walls. She was already asleep. Cursing her, cursing the pain, he snapped the envelope into his knapsack before he climbed into his own bag. In sleep, she sighed, low and quiet.
Doug stared at the ceiling of the cave, wide awake and aching from more than bruises.
C H A P T E R
6
Something tickled the back of her hand. Fighting to cling to sleep, Whitney flicked her wrist in a lazy, back-and-forth action and yawned.
She had always kept her own hours. If she wanted to sleep until noon, she slept until noon. If she wanted to get up at dawn, she did. When the mood struck her, she could work for an eighteen-hour stretch. With a similar enthusiasm, she could sleep for the same length of time.
At the moment, she wasn’t interested in anything but the vague, rather pretty dream she was having. When she felt the feathery brush on her hand again, she sighed, only slightly annoyed, and opened her eyes.
In all probability, it was the biggest, fattest spider she’d ever seen. Big, black, and hairy, it probed and skiddled with its bowed legs. Her hand only inches from her face, Whitney watched as it loomed full in her vision, moving lazily across her knuckles in a direct line to her nose. For a moment, dazed with sleep, she just stared at it in the dim light.
Her knuckles. Her nose.
Realization came loud and clear. Muffling a yelp, she knocked the spider off and several feet into the air. It landed with an audible plop on the cave floor, then meandered drunkenly away.
The spider hadn’t frightened her. She never considered the possibility that it might have been poisonous. It was simply ugly and Whitney had a basic disrespect for the ugly.
Sighing in disgust, she sat up and combed her fingers through her tangled hair. Well, she supposed when one slept in a cave, one could expect a visit from ugly neighbors. But why hadn’t it visited Doug instead? Deciding there was no reason why he should sleep when she’d been so rudely awakened, Whitney turned with the full intention of giving him a hard shove.
He was gone, and so was his sleeping bag.
Uneasy, but not yet alarmed, she looked around. The cave was empty, with the rock formations Doug had spoken of giving it the look of an abandoned and slightly dilapidated castle. The cook fire was only a pile of glowing embers. The air smelled ripe. Some of the fruit was already turning. Doug’s pack, like his sleeping bag, was gone.
The bastard. The rotten bastard. He had taken himself off, with the papers, and left her stuck in a damn cave with a couple of pieces of fruit, a sack of rice, and a spider as big as a dinner plate.
Too furious to think twice, she dashed across the cave and began to crawl through the tunnel. When her breath clogged up, she pushed on. The hell with phobias, she told herself. No one was going to double-cross her and get away with it. To catch him, she had to get out. And when she caught him …
She saw the opening and concentrated on it, and revenge. Panting, shuddering, she pulled herself into the sunshine. Scrambling up, she drew in all of her breath and let it out on a shout.
“Lord! Lord, you sonofabitch!” The sound rang out and bounced back at her, half as loud but twice as angry. Impotently, she looked around at red hills and rock. How was she supposed to know which way he’d gone?
North. Damn north, he had the compass. And he had the map. After gritting her teeth, Whitney shouted again. “Lord, you bastard, you won’t get away with it!”
“With what?”
She spun on her heel and nearly bumped into him. “Where the hell were you?” she demanded. In a blaze of relief and anger, she gripped his shirt and yanked him against her. “Where the hell did you go?”
“Easy, sugar.” Companionably, he patted her bottom. “If I’d known you wanted to get your hands on me, I’d’ve stuck around longer.”
“Around your throat.” With a jerk, she released him.
“Gotta start somewhere.” He set his pack near the mouth of the cave. “D’you think I’d ditch you?”
“At the very first opportunity.”
He had to admit, she was sharp. The idea had occurred to him, but after a quick look around that morning, he hadn’t been able to justify leaving her in a cave in the middle of nowhere. Still, the opportunity was bound to come up.
In an attempt to keep her from getting a step ahead of him, he poured on the charm. “Whitney, we’re partners. And …” He lifted a hand and ran a fingertip down her cheek. “You’re a woman. What kind of man would I be if I left you alone in a place like this?”
She met his engaging smile with one of her own. “The kind of man who’d sell the hide off the family dog if the price was right. Now, where were you?”
He wouldn’t have sold the hide, but he might have hocked the whole dog if it had been necessary. “You’re a hard lady. Look, you were sleeping like a baby.” As she had all nigh
t, while he’d spent a good part of it tossing, turning, and fantasizing. He wouldn’t forgive her for that easily, but there was a time and place for payback. “I wanted to do a little scouting around, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
She let out a long breath. It was reasonable, and he was back. “Next time you want to play Daniel Boone, wake me up.”
“Whatever you say.”
Whitney saw a bird fly overhead. She watched it for a moment, until she was calm. The sky was clear, so was the air—and it was cool. The heat was a few hours off. There was a quality of silence she’d only heard a few times in her life. It soothed.
“Well, since you’ve been scouting, how about a report?”
“Everything’s quiet down in the village.” Doug drew out a cigarette which Whitney plucked from his fingers. Pulling out another, he lit them both. “I didn’t go close enough to get any real particulars, but it looks like business as usual. The way I see it, since everybody’s calm and easy, it’s a good time to drop in for a visit.”
Whitney looked down at her grime-smeared teddy. “Like this?”
“I’ve already told you it’s a nice dress.” And it had a certain appeal with one strap hanging down her shoulder. “Anyway, I didn’t pass a local beauty parlor and boutique.”
“You might go visiting looking sleazy.” Whitney cast one long look up his body, then down. “In fact, I’m sure you do. I, on the other hand, intend to wash and change first.”
“Suit yourself. There’s probably enough water left to get some of the dirt off your face.”
When she reached up automatically to brush at her cheeks, he grinned. “Where’s your pack?”
She looked back at the mouth of the cave. “It’s in there.” Her gaze was defiant, her voice firm when she looked back at him. “I’m not going back in there.”