Volcano

by Patricia Rice

  Charlie instantly stiffened. Glancing behind them, he pulled her farther into the shrubbery, where spying eyes couldn’t see them. Tammy noticed Penelope lingered near a dangling orchid, within hearing distance but guarding their privacy from anyone walking down the path.

  “Have you seen Raul?” Charlie demanded. “I’m looking for him.”

  Tammy bit her quivering lip. She hadn’t wanted to face all the possible causes of Raul’s disappearance. She’d thought he’d just grown tired of her. He was a man of the world, closer to her brother’s age than her own. She didn’t have much to offer. But she couldn’t ignore the possibilities....

  Fighting tears, she turned her face up to Charlie. “I thought he’d gone back to Miami. I love him, Charlie. You have to help me find him. You don’t think Papa would hurt him, do you?”

  She didn’t want to believe her father would hurt anyone, but she was afraid he’d kill Raul if he knew what they’d done. Raul couldn’t exactly be classified as wealthy, aristocratic, or from the best of families. He wasn’t even entirely white.

  The cold shock on Charlie’s face verified her worst fears.

  ELEVEN

  “Damn, but I’ll kill the bastard. You’re nothing but a baby. He had no right....”

  Penelope wrapped her fingers around Charlie’s thick biceps and squeezed hard. She didn’t figure she’d caused any pain, but she surprised him enough to shut him up. “Twenty is not a baby. Shut up, Charlie, before you make things worse.”

  She swung a sympathetic gaze toward Tammy. “Look, I have some idea of what you’re going through, but you’ll have to put your own needs aside for a while. Raul is missing. That’s the main concern here. Help Charlie find him. Then we can move on to the next step.”

  Tears clung to Tammy’s eyelashes, and her bottom lip quivered. She looked prepared for a physical blow, but at Penelope’s words, she straightened her shoulders and nodded. She gave Charlie a tentative glance, but her voice was steady. “Raul has a hut at the back of those acres his cousin used to farm. It’s in the forest and kind of covered with vines. It’s not much, but people left him alone there. He was hassled constantly when he stayed on the site.”

  “The tree house!” Charlie exclaimed. “I can’t believe he’s built another tree house. The man has shit for brains.”

  He would have stalked toward the car right there and then, but Penelope dug her fingers in. She could tell Charlie didn’t like being held back. It was about time someone taught him how it felt. “Your sister?” she reminded him.

  Charlie shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. He could scarcely look Tammy in the face. Penelope smothered a grin. Men were so damned transparent. “I assume the island doesn’t offer a large choice of men?” she prompted him.

  He regarded her warily but nodded. Tammy pouted and started to speak, but Penelope cut her off.

  “I don’t encourage running away, but perhaps some arrangement could be made? My sister and I have a guest room, if that will help.”

  Both Tammy and Charlie regarded her with matching suspicion and hope. Penelope felt like a harpooned porpoise, caught and inextricably trapped. “I really don’t want to hurt your mother. Is she as helpless as she seems?”

  Tammy jumped on that one. “Yes. She’s argued and argued but Father won’t let her go to Miami and won’t listen when she stands up for me. Not that she stands up for me often,” she finished sulkily.

  “Look, Raul could be in some danger. I’ve got to find him before it gets dark. I don’t have time to plan your escape, Tammy, and I’m not certain I approve, in any event. Raul’s too damned old for you.”

  Penelope could see the anger flaring in Charlie’s eyes, but he knew nothing about vulnerable, lovesick young girls. She did. “That isn’t the point right now. The point is whether we should help Tammy start a life of her own. Can you help put her through school if she goes to the States?”

  She could almost see his relief at this sensible suggestion, one he could control with money and a minimal amount of emotional involvement.

  “Yeah, I can swing it, if I can get back in time to save my business,” he added ominously. “It’s the wrong time of year for starting school though,” he pointed out.

  “Do you think Raul is in some danger?” Tammy asked, ignoring his objection.

  Charlie shrugged, but Penelope knew the answer to that.

  He wouldn’t be tearing the island apart if he didn’t fear for Raul’s life. His sister wasn’t a fool either.

  Eyes blazing, Tammy limped toward the drive. “Take me with you. If Father has hurt Raul in any way, I never want to see him again. I can help, Charlie. Let’s go.”

  Charlie wavered. Penelope could see his confusion. She didn’t think he was much used to dealing with family, and certainly not with his kid sister, one who wasn’t a child anymore. She gave him credit for not throwing a tantrum and refusing outright. He wanted to do what was best. He just didn’t know what it was.

  Neither did she, but Tamara was apparently taking the matter out of their hands. She had already disappeared around the corner of the house, in the direction of the jeep. “Let’s go, Charlie,” Penelope whispered. “She’s a grown woman, whether you recognize it or not. She has every right to get in that car and go where she wants.”

  “But this is a hell of a way of doing it,” he protested, striding hurriedly after Tammy.

  “Then we’ll send her back if she has a change of heart. This is an island, remember. She can’t go far.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “All right. We’ll take her into town, drop her off at a friend’s. I can call my mother later and tell her Tammy’s all right.”

  Penelope knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy, but this wasn’t her family. Now that Charlie wasn’t undercover, he could drop her off at the resort and she could go back to work. Her conscience sighed with relief. The rest of her plummeted into some weird hole she could almost label disappointment. How had her life become so boring that she actually enjoyed being kidnapped by a lunkheaded ex-football player?

  As they rounded the corner of the house, they encountered Vivian in white gloves and heels standing stalwartly beside Alphonso and a gleaming Mercedes. Shoulders drooping, spine curved in defeat, Tammy waited beside her mother. She didn’t even glance up as Penelope and Charlie appeared.

  “Bear with me,” Charlie whispered, squeezing her arm. Striding confidently forward, he hugged his mother and checked the back of the jeep to make certain their luggage was loaded. Penelope lagged uncertainly behind. Tammy wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “I’m taking Penny back to the resort. Got your bathing suit, kid? You can teach Penny to snorkel until I get back.”

  “Tamara cannot possibly—”

  Charlie cut his mother short. “She’s a grown woman, Mother. You can’t baby-sit her forever. Penny and I will be there. What can happen? You know the resort. We’ll dine on the terrace, listen to the band, and be back here before midnight. Nothing to it.”

  Vivian looked less certain. She glanced at her daughter, who had tear streaks down her face. “Well, but I think I should send Alphonso with her. And she’s to come home before ten. Those roads are quite treacherous, and they’re worse at night.” She shot the candy-striped jeep a disapproving look. “And since I’m going into town anyway, she can travel with me. You’re much better off taking a water taxi to the resort.”

  “Whatever you say, Ma,” Charlie said, deliberately goading his mother. He chucked his sister under the chin. “If you’re going in with Ma, I’m going to make a little side trip. We’ll meet you at the dock around five, okay?”

  Penelope heard the warning in his voice. So did Tammy. She looked up uncertainly, searched Charlie’s face, then nodded.

  “Good girl. Buy yourself some dancing shoes while you’re in town. I’m in the mood to rumba.”

  Rumba. The man could rumba. Penelope stared at him in incredulity as he strode around the car and opened the door for her. She’d lik
e to see this big football player of a man on the dance floor, moving to the music. Actually, she could. The image was totally devastating. Now that she was released from any thought of danger, her mind had taken flight.

  After she climbed in the car, Charlie leaned under the awning and grinned at her. “If we find Raul, we’ll rumba all night. Remember your dance lessons, Miss Penny?”

  He didn’t give her time to answer. As the Mercedes rolled down the drive and out of sight, he jogged around the jeep and leapt into the seat.

  “Let’s get this show on the road. I should have known the bastard would hole up in the woods. He’s probably watching for those damned disappearing parrots. We’ll probably find Jacques there too.”

  Penelope didn’t think that very likely, but it was no longer her concern. Cautiously, she reminded him, “Since you don’t need me any longer, you could drop me off in town. I can take the water taxi back.”

  His jaw set stubbornly as he shifted into gear. “It’s easier if I go up the mountain first. I want to see that hut in daylight.” The jeep putt-putted slowly through the settling dust of the Mercedes. The other car was long out of sight. “Besides, we’re still on our honeymoon, remember? Wouldn’t you like to see what remains of the rain forest? We have some nearly extinct parrots flitting around in there. I can’t promise you’ll see them, but we can look.”

  Put that way, she could almost rationalize the side trip. She might never have another opportunity to see the island from the standpoint of a native. She could spend years flying in and out of airports, trapped in hotels, and never see the real countryside. Why not take this one chance to see something new and exotic?

  She slid down in her seat and scowled as she realized she was actually trusting a man who had kidnapped her. Just because he had family problems like everyone else on the planet didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  “Why were we wasting time slinking around when you could have asked your family for help in the first place?” she demanded. “Didn’t you intend to visit them?”

  “Raul was more important.” He glared at the road ahead and hit the gas. The jeep didn’t noticeably accelerate. “Besides, you saw what they’re like. Even if Emile knew anything, he wouldn’t tell me. And if Raul has been fooling around with Tammy, then he was playing with fire for certain. I can’t believe that jerk. I was about to make him partner, dammit. I trusted the man.”

  “Then if you trust him enough to make him a partner, why shouldn’t Tammy trust him?” she asked, reasonably enough, she thought.

  He hung on to the steering wheel as a tire hit a crater and the car bounced, then swung the vehicle up a narrow gravel road. The ensuing silence hung heavily between them. Finally, Charlie cut her a glare.

  “His mother’s the Caribbean equivalent of a mestizo, all right? And he doesn’t know who his father is, although chances are real good the man was more white than Raul’s mother. It’s not exactly the American family, okay?”

  “Yeah, right.” Penelope crossed her arms and watched the road ahead. “You sound just like your stepfather.”

  “She’s my baby sister! You think I want her to endure the kind of heartache a match like that can bring? Even if he were richer than Croesus, and lord knows, Raul’s nowhere near that working for me, what do you think her life would be like back in Miami?”

  “I think that’s something she has to figure out for herself. It’s none of your damned business. It’s not as if you’ve taken any interest in her over—” Penelope screamed at the gaping maw opening ahead. “Stop! My God, Charlie—”

  Cursing, Charlie slammed the brakes and swung the wheel toward the uphill side of the road. The tires squealed in protest, the jeep reeled out of control, then smashed to a rest against the trunk of a cocoa tree. In front of them, a washed-out section of the road crumbled down the hillside into the valley far below.

  Stunned, Charlie reached over and brushed a tumbled lock of black hair off Penelope’s pale cheek. He’d seen her jerk forward, but it had happened too fast. He couldn’t see blood. “Penny, you okay?”

  She blinked but continued staring at the missing road on his side of the vehicle. “We could have gone right down the side of the mountain.”

  He figured it was some kind of shock reaction. He was having a hard time taking it all in too. He just wanted to make certain she was all right before he thought about it. “Maybe we’d better get out of this thing. Can you open your door?”

  Penelope pushed the handle of the passenger door, but the door hit solid ground, leaving only a narrow crack. “I can probably climb over the door,” she whispered.

  Charlie looked at the road on his side. Mere inches separated the jeep from the ravine that had once been road. They rested at a precarious angle on the edge of nothingness. “Maybe you’d better try that,” he said carefully. He didn’t think she was entirely aware of the danger of their position yet. He’d just have to pray the jeep didn’t shift as she climbed out. She might make it. He didn’t think he would.

  He watched as she wrapped her fingers around the tree trunk outside the door and eased herself up and out. The way she moved, he thought she was probably bruised and more than a little shaken. If they lived to get out of this, he’d see she got safely back to her job. He’d have everyone he knew send commendations to her damned stuffy employers. And he knew lots of people.

  That didn’t repair the damage already done, but it gave him impetus enough to want to survive. As Penelope swung her leg over the side, the jeep tilted dangerously. Charlie pushed her from the car and leapt over the seat after her.

  She fell in a thicket of weeds. He flung himself at a tree trunk and hung on. The gravel beneath the jeep slipped a little more. Rocks tumbled and bounced off boulders far below. He was a little out of practice at acrobatics, but he swung over the door, clinging to the tree as the jeep began its gradual descent into the ravine. He continued clinging as the jeep slid out from under him.

  “My God, Charlie!” Penelope screamed, finally wakening from her daze. “It’s going to fall!”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Trying not to breathe too hard, he eased his feet to the ground and steadied himself against the tree. Not too hard. The tree could follow the jeep. Shakily, he pried his fingers loose from the bark and fell beside Penelope, a few yards from the crumbling roadway. “We’re all in one piece,” he reassured himself aloud.

  The jeep caught on a jagged edge, teetered, then succumbed to gravity. Silently, they watched it slip into the crevasse, flip over, and tumble hood over trunk down the mountain. Presumably, it disappeared into the canopy of trees below. Charlie didn’t have the incentive to stand up and look.

  “I think I’ll sit here for a little while,” Penelope said thoughtfully from beside him.

  She didn’t sound like the woman he knew. He threw her a cautious glance. She still looked perilously pale. Even her lips had lost color. She sat rigidly in the weed patch, her fingers clenched around the purse in her lap. She still wore that clingy green stuff from dinner. The sheath had slipped well up her thighs and the gauzy jacket had a rip in it. Her sheer panty hose had torn into ladders wide enough to put her foot through. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything but the brilliant blue sky on the far side of what remained of the road.

  If he thought it would do any good, he would wrap her in his arms and comfort her, but she didn’t look like the type who would willingly weep on his shoulder. He wasn’t much used to comforting women anyway.

  “I’d better check, make certain no one else went over the edge before us.” He didn’t know how he would do that either, but it seemed like the thing to do.

  “Tamara!” she uttered, finally jolting from her stupor. “Did your mother come this way?”

  Feeling a little better now that those dark eyes had regained a semblance of life, Charlie smoothed another tumbled lock from Penelope’s cheek. He liked doing that. She’d lost several pins, and the heavy mass was in danger of tilting as precariously as the jeep
. For whatever inane reason, her dishevelment seemed to ease their differences. “No, they took the main road down. They’re fine.”

  She nodded. He didn’t think she’d even noticed his touch. He contemplated pulling out the remaining pins and burying his face in the silken mass of her hair, but that might wake her up a little too abruptly. He’d best go do something heroic. Or stupid. He couldn’t just sit here, twiddling his thumbs.

  Gingerly, Charlie stood up, clinging to a more stable tree for support until he was certain his feet wouldn’t tumble out from under him. Testing the ground ahead, he worked his way toward the ravine. He grabbed a vine, tugged to verify its safety, and used it for a safety rope as he edged closer.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Penelope jerked her head up and stared in incredulity at the sight of Charlie hanging over the edge of the ravine.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she whispered. She couldn’t seem to raise her voice. Maybe she feared the mountain would crumble if she spoke too loud.

  “Our bags are right there on that damned ledge.”

  Their bags. She hadn’t even thought about them. Glancing down at her once elegant skirt, she shuddered. “Forget them. They’re not worth your life.”

  “You know what?” he asked thoughtfully, studying the gorge.

  “Tell me when you get back here,” she urged.

  “I don’t think the road just washed away.”

  She stared as he bent to examine something over the side of the fallen pavement. “Charlie, don’t do this to me. Get back here immediately.”

  Gingerly clinging to rocks, he turned to face her again, his heavy eyebrows pulled into an ominous frown.

  “I think that explosion earlier was someone blowing out the road with dynamite.”

  TWELVE

  Dynamite! Penelope gripped her elbows as she tried to pull her mind back from the precipice they’d almost dived over. Surely no one would deliberately set explosives....