Wild Orchids

by Karen Robards

  An hour and a half later, as the car stuttered into the tiny town of Puerto Santos, Lora had the answer: too many. She shifted savagely down into first with much groaning from the engine to make it up the steep grade leading to the harbor. The Volvo shuddered and whined, but it slowly climbed the hill. At the top, it gave a gasp, and died. Lora was left to coast down toward the sparkling blue waters of the Bahia de Amatique, where she had been informed she might find Tunafish’s Fishing Fleet.

  The harbor was filled with a colorful assortment of boats of various sizes and degrees of repair. Lora stopped the car, set the brake despite a strong temptation to let the blasted vehicle roll straight into the bay, and climbed out, sniffing appreciatively at the fresh, salty tang of the air. Finding Tunafish’s Fishing Fleet among this lively collection of people and boats might take awhile.

  As it happened, it took just about five minutes. Lora only had to show the business card to a cheerful, white-garbed bait vendor to be pointed toward a small wooden building with a blue flag flaunting the same illustration that had been used on the card waving over it. “Tunafish’s Fishing Fleet. We find ’em, you catch ’em” proclaimed the sign out front. Lora walked beneath it, squinting a little as she passed from the brilliant sunlight outside to the shadowy interior of the building. Any minute now she expected to see Tunafish. . . .

  “May I help you?” The voice was definitely not Tunafish’s. Lora’s eyes adjusted finally to find herself being studied by a slender, pretty black woman clad in a loose cotton blouse and flowing skirt. Despite the two-inch heels of the espadrilles on her feet, she must have been just over five feet tall. Lora stared at her, guessing at once who this had to be.

  “You’re Annie, aren’t you?” Lora asked with a smile, holding out her hand.

  The woman looked briefly surprised, then with another swift, appraising look at Lora she smiled, too, a warm, generous smile with a lot of humor to it, and shook Lora’s hand.

  “That’s right, I am,” she agreed. “And you must be Lora. I had a feeling I’d be meeting you one of these days.”

  Now it was Lora’s turn to look surprised. “You did? I’m surprised you’ve even heard my name.”

  Annie looked amused. “Oh, I’ve heard more than your name. Theodore is always talking about Lora this, Lora that. He says Max is stuck on you real bad. Max isn’t talking, but he has been one soreheaded son of a bitch ever since he got back.”

  It took Lora a minute to remember that Tunafish’s given name was Theodore, and to assimilate the fact that Max had apparently been in a rotten mood since parting from her. Which knowledge pleased her mightily. He deserved every rotten feeling his conscience visited upon him!

  “Is Tunafish here?” Lora asked, wanting to get on with the real reason for her journey while her temper was still smoldering.

  “Yeah. He’s up at the house, tied to the bed by a traction pulley the doctor rigged up so he could come home. Tunafish hates being in the hospital, but he hates being home in bed almost as much. But you didn’t come all this way to see Tunafish, did you?” She smiled broadly again, her large brown eyes twinkling at Lora. “You came to see Max.”

  Lora felt a brief flare of embarrassment, which quickly died under Annie’s warm smile. “Yes, I did,” she admitted with a smile of her own.

  “And about time, too,” Annie said with satisfaction. “Max lives right up the hill. . . .” She took Lora to the door and pointed toward where a row of narrow adobe town houses painted in bright pastel shades rose from the cliff overlooking the bay. “In the pink one. And he’s home, now, too.”

  “Thank you.” Lora turned to smile at Annie with real gratitude. From what she had seen of the smaller woman, she could readily believe that Tunafish and his children were ruled with an iron hand. Despite her small size, she had the feeling that Annie would be dauntless in the face of any adversity or opposition. She also had the feeling that Annie would make a good friend.

  “My pleasure,” Annie said, shooing Lora on her way. Then she added with a wide grin, “Give him hell, honey,” before vanishing back inside the shop.

  With a single thought for the car—which would probably never run again, with her luck—Lora decided to walk. It didn’t look so very far. . . . But by the time she arrived, panting and breathless, at the foot of the dauntingly steep flight of steps leading up to the door of the pink house, she felt as if she had taken a journey of a thousand miles. The road was steep and uneven, the sun hot. Her feet in their flat sandals ached. Her aqua pedal pushers and striped t-shirt were damp with sweat and clung uncomfortably to her skin. Her hair was disheveled and, she feared, starting to curl, perspiration beaded her face and her arm ached from lugging the damned bag. And her temper, which had cooled slightly from its first hot flaring when she had received the money, was flaring hotter than ever. She glared up at the white painted door, stiffened her spine, and marched up the steps like a general going into battle.

  “Sí?” Whatever she had been expecting, the sultry brunette who opened the door in response to her brisk pounding was not it. Lora gaped at the woman—a voluptuous creature barely dressed in a red halter top and tiny white shorts—while the woman in turn eyed her up and down with barely veiled insolence.

  “I—want to speak with Max.” Lora put up her chin and refused to be put off by this unexpected occurrence. Perhaps she had the wrong house, or maybe this Latin Mae West was Max’s housekeeper. It was within the realm of possibility.

  “Max, he is busy.”

  At least the woman spoke English, Lora registered just as the door started to close very decisively in her face. Lora stared with disbelief at the closing door and felt her smoldering anger flame to blazing life. She had not come all this way to be told by some half-naked sexpot that Max was too busy to see her! She was up the remaining step with a bound, and shoving her way through the door. The brunette fell back under her onslaught, and stood glaring at her, fists planted on round hips. Lora glared back.

  “I want to speak with Max,” she reiterated with a distinct edge to her voice.

  The woman replied in shrill Spanish accompanied by unfriendly shooing gestures with her hands. Lora stood her ground, thinking that she might just have to take matters into her own hands and invade the house further to search for Max herself, when he spoke.

  “What the hell—Conchita, que pasa?” He was standing at the top of the stairs that hugged the whitewashed wall to the left of the door, looking down over the wrought iron railing, an irritable frown on his face. His voice died away as his eyes lighted on Lora.

  She stared up at him, meeting those black eyes, thinking that he had never looked worse or, conversely, better. At least to her. His face was unshaven, his hair stood up untidily around his head, his cut-off jeans were so faded that they barely seemed to have any color at all, his baggy white shirt hung outside his shorts and had the breast pocket half torn off, and his feet were bare. His expression changed as he recognized her; the scowl vanished to be replaced by an inscrutable scrutiny as he slowly descended the stairs. When he reached the bottom, Conchita threw herself at him, her arms going around his neck, her brightly painted mouth babbling away in Spanish just inches from his. Under Lora’s affronted eyes, she finished the diatribe by planting a passionate kiss on Max’s mouth. He caught her arms, pulling them down from around his neck and holding her a little away from him.

  “Hello, Lora.” This was said over Conchita’s dark head. Conchita wailed at him in Spanish. Max ignored her, looking at Lora with unreadable black eyes.

  “Hello, Max.” Despite her best efforts, she could not keep a savage inflection from coloring her response. “You have lipstick on your mouth.”

  “Do I?” His response was absent. With a brief word to Conchita, who visibly sulked, he released her to swipe at his mouth with the back of his hand. The scarlet stain that had acted on Lora like a red flag on a bull disappeared. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  Lora’s eyes sparked. “Oh, I just happened to
be in the neighborhood,” she replied, as sarcastically as he had once said the same thing to her.

  “I presume you got my—message?” His voice was politely inquiring.

  Lora nodded curtly. “Yes, I did. And now I’ve got one for you. Here!” She heaved the bag at him, right at his stomach, hoping that it would hurt when it landed.

  But he was too quick for her. He caught the bag in both hands, hefting it with a slight grin as he realized from its weight what it contained. She glared at him, disappointed not to be leaving him doubled over in pain, and turned on her heel. All the things she had been going to say to him were impossible under the circumstances. He had a woman with him. . . . Lora felt as if her heart was being squeezed in a vice. She also felt coldly furious. He had a woman here!

  “Lora, wait!” He came after her as she marched, head high, down the steps, catching her a few steps from the bottom.

  “Let go of me!” She tried to jerk her arm out of his grasp, but he wasn’t letting go. Tired of jerking, she glared at him.

  “Surely you didn’t come all this way just to throw the money in my face! Don’t you want to tell me what a bastard I am?”

  “Yes!”

  He grinned, a warm and carefree grin that she rewarded with an even fiercer glare. He had no right to look so damned sexy—not when he had just wiped another woman’s lipstick from his mouth!

  “Why don’t you, then? The way you look, you’ll burst if you have to go all the way back to Kansas with all that temper inside you.”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” she said frigidly, her snapping eyes belying her arctic tone. “Nothing at all, you low-down, sleazy, lying, cheating, cowardly son of a bitch!” Her voice deteriorated into an infuriated hiss as she spat out that last.

  He laughed. “Come in and chew me out in comfort, why don’t you? The house is air conditioned—and there isn’t another bus out of here until tomorrow morning.”

  “I drove.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  His rueful shake of the head did it. Her temper exploded. She had had enough of his cowardly retreat from relationships, his animadversions on her driving, his women. . . . Before she even realized she meant to do it, her hand was arcing through the air to connect with satisfying force against his cheek. The sound of the slap resounded sharply through the cheerful droning of voices and vehicles as residents of the area went about their business on this sunny afternoon.

  Max clapped a hand to his rapidly reddening cheek, staring down at her, his own eyes suddenly alight. Then he reached for her, grabbing her by the upper arms and hauling her hard against his body as his head swooped to capture her mouth.

  He kissed her soundly, there on the steps of his house with white seagulls and brown terns wheeling and calling in the bright blue sky and interested neighbors watching from nearby windows and the street. In the doorway above, Conchita watched with a gathering scowl. As Max released Lora, looking down at her with a bewitching smile while Lora stared back at him, bemused, Conchita stormed down the steps, spitting a torrent of Spanish. She shouldered between the two of them, confronting Max with wild gesticulations and angry words while Lora staggered backwards, on the verge of losing her balance on the narrow step.

  Before Max could react, Conchita hauled off and slapped him too, on the very same cheek. Then she flounced on down the stairs and up the street to the tune of laughter and clapping by the gleefully watching neighbors.

  “And that goes double for me!” Lora said when she had recovered from the shock of it. Max looked at her out of those glinting black eyes, grabbed her arm, and hauled her up the steps after him. The watching neighbors cheered.

  “Why did you come?” he asked quietly as he closed the door on their interested audience.

  Lora looked at him stonily in the shadowy quiet of the hallway. That slap had only relieved her feelings—it hadn’t eliminated them.

  “It should be obvious, but if you like I’ll spell it out! I don’t want that dirty money. I came to return it.”

  “There’s twenty thousand dollars there, Lora. One-fifth, the same amount that went to Clemente’s and Lowenthal’s families and Tunafish and me. That’s a lot of money to turn down for a scruple.”

  “At least I have scruples!”

  “Meaning that I don’t? But I do—at least where you’re concerned. I could have fed you this big line about being in love with you to get you into bed, but I didn’t. I played it straight.”

  “Am I supposed to give a big cheer or what?”

  “You’re supposed to return the favor. Tell the truth, Lora. Why did you really come?”

  “I told you, to return the money.”

  “Liar.” He said the word softly.

  Lora stared into those glinting black eyes and felt hot color begin to creep up her neck.

  “I did. . . .”

  “I’ve missed you, Lora. I think you’ve missed me, too.”

  She stared at him. He looked very tall and very dark as he towered over her in the narrow hallway. Overhead, a large hanging fern caught the light from a window at the top of the stairs. The hanging greenery reminded her of the jungle. . . .

  “I can see you’ve been very lonely.” The sarcasm was a defense against desperate need. More than anything on earth she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to hold her, make love to her, love her. . . . But she couldn’t. She couldn’t just meekly surrender to whatever restrictions he chose to put on their relationship. She couldn’t stay with him, loving him, knowing that it would last only for as long as he wanted her body, knowing that he might leave her at any time—or turn to another woman, as he had clearly already done. . . .

  “If you’re talking about Conchita, and I can see you are, it’s been over between us for a long time. Since before you and I met. She just came by today to see if she could restoke old coals—and I had already told her nothing doing before you arrived. That’s why she slapped me.”

  Lora stared up at him. He smiled back at her, a little coaxing smile that ordinarily would have charmed the heart right out of her. But not today. Today there was too much at stake. Lora saw suddenly, clearly, that he was right: she hadn’t come to return the money at all. She had come to reclaim Max, but this time on her own terms if she could.

  “Anyway,” he said, the smile fading, “what about your math teacher?”

  “I broke our engagement.”

  “Ahhh.” The smile reappeard again, broadened. “Why, Lora?”

  “Because I realized I didn’t love him.” The admission was as quiet as it was honest. The time had come to lay her cards on the table. It was a gamble, but she couldn’t go through life wondering and worrying and hoping that someday she might hit on the right gambit to make Max return her love. Max had to know how she felt, and if the knowledge scared him into running again, then it was better to find out now than later, when her emotional commitment would be even greater.

  Taking a deep breath, she twined her hands in front of her and looked up to meet those glittering black eyes. “I love you, Max.”

  His eyes flickered. That was absolutely the only response he made while Lora stared up at him with hope and fear mixed in equal parts in her eyes. This was the man who couldn’t stand commitment, who couldn’t let anyone too close, who vanished when he thought he might be growing too vulnerable. And it looked very much as if he was getting ready to run again. Lora braced herself to hear words that would crush her soul.

  “So you love me.” The words were very quiet, drawn out, as if he was looking them over for flaws. “I’m no great catch, Lora. I haven’t held a steady job in years, I have friends you wouldn’t let in the front door, I have a bum knee and those damned nightmares. You’d probably be better off with your math teacher.”

  “I don’t want the math teacher. I want you.” She reached out to touch him, her fingers trailing down the length of the strong arms to catch and hold his hands. He made a sound then, half laugh, half groan, and pulled her close, his arms
coming around her to hold her in a crushing embrace.

  “I want you, too,” he said, his voice muffled by her hair. “So damned much. Why do you think I sent the money? I knew it would bring you running. If it hadn’t, I would have had to swallow my pride and come after you.”

  “Would you really have come for me?” She pulled a little away from him to look up into his face. Her own face was ablaze with happiness. He wanted her—and not just for a little sex. He might not love her, but at least he cared a little, and that was enough. To start with, anyway.

  “Oh, yes. Two days after I left you I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. The rest of the time I spent figuring out how to get you back without groveling.”

  “Max, darling, I’d love to watch you grovel,” she whispered, reaching up to plant a kiss on his hard mouth. He returned her kiss with a hot leisureliness that made her bare toes curl up on the soles of her sandals. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and then he was picking her up and carrying her up the stairs. . . .

  “So you’d like to watch me grovel, hmmm?” It was later, much later, and they were cozily ensconsed in his big bed while gentle night breezes blew in through the screened window to cool their overheated bodies.

  “Mmmmm.” She was tired, blissfully tired. Turning in his arms, she snuggled closer. He was warm and damp and his hairs tickled her nose and she loved him. . . .

  “You could make me, you know.”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “Damn it, woman, here I am trying to tell you I love you and you’re going to sleep on me!” The gruff voice roused her before the words had a chance to sink in.

  Lora sat bolt upright, staring down at him. “What did you say?”

  He crossed his arms behind his head and looked up at her, his big body very dark and muscular against the white sheets. “You heard me.”