Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

by Susan Napier;Kathryn Ross;Kelly Hunter;Sandra Marton;Katherine Garbera;Margaret Mayo

  Brionny paused outside what passed for the hotel dining room and pushed open the door. Mismatched wooden chairs leaned drunkenly against stained tables; rainwater dripped from a hole in the ceiling. Except for a procession of large black ants that marched determinedly up and down the far wall, the room was empty.

  Damn! Where had Ingram gone? It was unlike him to disappear. The most positive thing Brionny could say about him, aside from his brilliance as an archaeologist, was that he kept to his schedule. He was impossible otherwise—autocratic, unpleasant, unforgiving—and more than willing to load her with work in the face of what she suspected might be a decline in his health. It was hard to tell; Ingram did not take kindly to personal questions.

  ‘You are my assistant, Miss Stuart,’ he’d said sharply just yesterday, after she’d thought she’d noticed him suddenly going pale at lunch, ‘not my keeper.’

  But then, she hadn’t become Ingram’s graduate assistant for his charm. He was a leading expert on Amazonian Indian culture; even her father had been impressed when she’d gotten the appointment. Of course, Henry Stuart would have preferred if it she’d entered the graduate program at the university where he was head of the archaeology department, but Brionny had made it clear she wanted to succeed on her own.

  Or fail, she thought with a little sigh. Where the devil was the professor? She’d checked everywhere: in his room, at the market, in the town square, and now in the Florinda’s public rooms—the lobby, the card lounge, the dining room…

  Ahead, in a dimly lit hallway, a small neon-lit sign blinked on and off. ‘AR,’ it said, and she wondered idly how long it had been since the ‘B’ had gone dark. There seemed little chance of finding Ingram in the barroom, but she knew she had to check.

  A pulse of screeching music drifted from beneath a slatted, swinging door. She reached toward it, then hesitated. She thought of the man who’d come on to her minutes before. She remembered how he’d terrorized the desk clerk, how he’d looked at her as if she were something that had been gift-wrapped just for him, how his green eyes had turned to chips of ice when she’d rebuffed his unwanted advances.

  It would be hell to find a room full of men like him on the far side of the door.

  It would be worse to have Professor Ingram blame her for forfeiting their appointment.

  Brionny took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and pushed open the door.

  Music swirled around her, wafted along on a pungent breath of cigarette smoke and liquor fumes. She coughed, blinked her eyes against the artificial darkness—and felt her heart plummet to her shoes.

  The good news was that Edgar Ingram was definitely not in the room. The bad news was that the men who instantly turned toward her made the man in the lobby look like a candidate for Boy Scout of the Year.

  Brionny swallowed. Her mouth opened, then closed. ‘Sorry,’ she said briskly. She swung around quickly—but not quickly enough. A man had already slipped from one of the stools that ran the length of the bar and started in her direction.

  ‘Buenas noches, señorita.’

  She looked up. He was not tall, but what he lacked in height he made up in girth. He looked like a barrel, Brionny thought, with tree trunks for arms and legs. He grinned, flashing a smile that revealed shining gold teeth and clouds of bad breath.

  Brionny smiled politely. ‘I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish,’ she said, lying without hesitation. ‘If you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘Iss no problem, señorita.’ Barrel Man grinned and put a beefy hand on her arm. ‘I speak the Anglish perfect.’

  ‘You certainly do,’ she said brightly. ‘Now if you’d just—’

  ‘I buy you drink, yes?’

  ‘No. No, thank you very much, I’m not thirsty.’

  Her answer brought a roar of laughter. ‘She no thirs’y,’ he said to the room at large. The men who understood him chuckled, then translated for their fellows. Within seconds, everyone was laughing gaily. Brionny smiled too, although it wasn’t easy.

  ‘Would you let go of my arm, please?’ she said politely.

  Barrel Man chuckled. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Brionny swallowed drily. ‘What do you mean, why? Because-because—’

  ‘We danze,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’ His arm slid around her waist.

  Brionny dug in her heels. ‘No,’ she repeated, her voice sharp. ‘I have no intention of—’

  She gasped as his hand dropped low on her hip.

  ‘Dammit,’ she snapped, grasping his wrist, ‘don’t do that!’

  Barrel Man shot a sly glance toward his friends. ‘Dammit,’ he mimicked in a high, mincing voice, ‘doan do that!’

  ‘You have no right—’

  His hand curved around her bottom. Oh God, Brionny thought—and all at once a dangerously lazy voice spoke from behind her.

  ‘She’s right, pal.’

  Brionny and Barrel Man both swung around. The man from the lobby stood silhouetted in the doorway, his posture relaxed yet definitely threatening, shoulders back, arms flexed, legs slightly apart. He looked, she thought, as if he was ready to take on the world.

  ‘Let go of the lady,’ he said softly.

  Barrel Man smiled. ‘Why should I?’

  The man smiled too. ‘Because she belongs to me.’ Brionny’s head came up sharply. ‘She’s my woman,’ he said, flashing her a warning look. ‘Do you understand, compadre?’

  Whether Barrel Man understood or not was debatable, but Brionny suddenly did. I can get you out of here, the man in the doorway was saying, but only if you cooperate.

  As choices went, it was better than nothing.

  She took a breath, smiled, and tossed her head so that her hair flew back from her face.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s about time. Where have you been?’

  He grinned. ‘You see how much she loves me, compadre?’ His smile vanished and he looked straight at Barrel Man. ‘For the last time, man. Take your hand off her.’

  There was a moment that seemed to stretch on forever. Everyone in the room seemed to be waiting, waiting—and then the man standing next to Brionny laughed and, with exaggerated care, lifted his hand from her backside.

  ‘You mus’ keep a better watch on your woman,’ he said.

  The man in the doorway smiled. ‘You’re right. I looked away for a couple of seconds and, caramba, she was gone.’ He looked at Brionny, then raised his band and crooked his finger at her, just as he had done to the hapless desk clerk. ‘OK, baby,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  His eyes locked on hers and she could see the warning burning like a cold flame in their green depths. Don’t do anything stupid, he was saying; this isn’t over yet.

  She stepped away from her admirer and walked toward him, her gaze locked on his face. He still had that lazy look about him but she could see how deceptive it was. He was ready for trouble, perhaps even hoping for it.

  ‘Don’t stop now, woman!’

  She looked up, not realizing her steps had faltered until she heard that low-pitched warning. Her rescuer, it you could call him that, was still smiling, but she could hear the tension in his voice, see it in the way his eyes kept scanning the room behind her.

  Her legs felt like lead. She took a step, then another, and he reached out impatiently, wrapped his hand around her wrist, and tugged her forward. She fell into the hard curve of his arm, her body molding against his side.

  ‘Hello, lover,’ he said, and he bent and kissed her, hard, on the mouth. ‘Smile, lady,’ he growled, his lips against her ear. ‘Smile as if you mean it—unless you’d rather give our friend with the mouth full of nuggets another shot at getting lucky this evening!’

  Brionny forced a smile to her face. ‘You’re despicable,’ she whispered.

  He grinned. ‘She says I’m irresistible,’ he called to the watching men, then added something in Spanish that made them roar with laughter as he led her out the door.

  As soon as they were in
the corridor, Brionny shoved her elbow into his ribs.

  ‘You can let go of me now,’ she said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he answered, hustling her down the hallway at his side.

  ‘All right. Thank you for your help. Now let me go.’

  ‘When I’m good and ready.’

  ‘Dammit, are you deaf?’ She was trotting along on her toes, struggling as much to match his stride as to free herself from his unwanted embrace. ‘I said—’

  ‘I know what you said.’ His arm tightened around her as he marched her toward the lobby. ‘It’s what I say that counts right now.’

  ‘Listen here, mister, you may have saved me from—from an embarrassing situation, but that doesn’t give you the right to—’

  ‘Embarrassing?’ He stopped dead and swung her around to face him, his eyes glaring into hers. ‘Is that what you call that little scene I stumbled into? Hell, if that’s all it was, I’ll take you straight back to the boys and—’

  ‘No!’ Brionny spoke quickly, almost breathlessly. ‘I—I wouldn’t want to go back there.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got some kind of brain in that head.’

  She flushed. ‘All right. I suppose I do owe you a thank-you, but that doesn’t mean—’

  ‘What in hell were you doing in there, anyway?’

  ‘Look, I don’t owe you—’

  ‘You just got done telling me you did.’

  She glared at him. ‘I said I owed you my thanks, not an explanation, Mr-Mr—’

  ‘McClintoch. Slade McClintoch. And I still want to know what you were doing in the bar. Come to think of it, what in hell are you doing in the Florinda?’

  ‘I’m a guest here, if it’s any of your business.’

  ‘The Florinda doesn’t have “guests”, it has poor unfortunates who have no choice but to spend the night under its roof.’

  Brionny smiled coldly. ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself.’

  ‘Come on, baby, tell the truth. You’re with one of those fancy tours and you went off on your own to see how the other half lives.’

  ‘Damn you!’ Brionny twisted away from him, dug furiously into her pocket, and pulled out her room key. ‘Is this good enough to convince you that I belong here?’

  He looked at the key, then at her. ‘Either your travel agent’s crazy or you are.’

  ‘Thank you for that wonderful piece of information. Now, if you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘The next time you’re desperate for a drink, go down to the corner, buy a fifth of tequila, and take it to your room.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure that works wonderfully for you, Mr McClintoch. But I happen to have been looking for someone—not that it’s any of your business.’

  Slade grinned. ‘Yeah? Well, you sure as hell found someone, didn’t you?’

  ‘How dare you speak to me that way?’

  ‘You’re lucky I’m speaking to you at all. I could have taken one look at the mess you’d stirred up—’

  ‘Me? I didn’t stir anything up. Those men—’

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. Slade looked up. The guy who resembled a barrel with legs was ambling toward them, flanked by a couple of his buddies. When he spotted them, his pace quickened.

  Slade glanced at the woman, standing there with her room key dangling from her fingertips and fire blazing in her eyes.

  ‘Shut up,’ he hissed.

  ‘I won’t! Just who do you think you—?’

  He cursed, snatched the key from her hand, and swung her up into his arms. She squealed and punched him in the shoulder as he strode into the lobby, hard enough so that he knew that beneath the curving softness of her body there was some surprisingly firm muscle.

  ‘Put me down! Do you hear me? You put me down this minute!’

  ‘Señor.’ The voice and the footsteps accompanying it were closer. ‘Hey, señor, has the lady change’ her mind?’

  The woman in Slade’s arms was struggling harder now. And she was still mouthing off, calling him every kind of bastard, demanding he set her on her feet. If she didn’t start behaving herself, he thought grimly, they were both going to be in trouble.

  ‘Dammit, lady,’ he growled as he made his way past the goggle-eyed desk clerk and started up the stairs. ‘I told you to keep quiet.’

  ‘I won’t!’

  ‘You will,’ he said, and covered her mouth with his.

  It was not a real kiss, it was simply a way to convince anybody who needed convincing of his ownership, to silence the damned fool woman until he dumped her in her room. It was the only way he could think of to get the both of them out of there without first having to take on The Barrel and Company, although Slade was beginning to think that might not be a bad idea, considering his growing irritation at how quickly a rotten day was getting steadily worse.

  What the kiss wasn’t supposed to be, he thought as he jammed her key into her door and elbowed his way into her room, was something that would turn him inside out. But hell, that was the way it felt. And when he kicked the door shut, dumped the woman on the bed and looked down at her, he took one look at her flushed face and glazed eyes and knew that that was the way it had felt to her, too.

  ‘Damn,’ Slade said softly, and he came down beside her on the bed and kissed her again.

  Chapter Two

  TWO WEEKS later, standing knee-deep in a tangle of reeds beside a jungle pool, Brionny thought of Slade McClintoch—something she did with regularity but certainly not with pleasure—and muttered a word that would have put Professor Ingram’s hair on end, had he been there to hear it.

  But the professor was back at their campsite, sitting propped against a tree, making yet another entry about the Eye of God in his personal journal while the native cook prepared lunch.

  Making journal entries was all he’d done since they’d found the Eye two days ago. The professor wasn’t well; Brionny was sure of it now. And it worried her. He was seventy if he was a day, and they were a million miles from nowhere. When she’d tried questioning him, he’d given her as sharp-tongued a reply as he had in Italpa.

  ‘My health is my concern, Miss Stuart. Keeping records is yours. This is the find of the century and I want it well documented.’

  There was no arguing with his logic. The Eye would make Ingram’s reputation and go a long way toward establishing her own. That she couldn’t seem to work up the proper level of excitement was entirely Slade McClintoch’s fault.

  ‘The bastard!’ she hissed into the silence surrounding the pool.

  It was ridiculous that remembering a man she would surely never see again should spoil such an achievement. Other expeditions had tried to find the Eye but with no success. Ingram had put in years of painstaking research and half a dozen prior field trips, most of them made before Brionny had been born. It had all paid off. He’d gone straight to the ruins of the Forbidden City, then to the statue that contained the emerald.

  ‘Ahh,’ he’d sighed as he’d wrenched the stone from where it had lain for centuries. ‘Be grateful you were part of his extraordinary event, Miss Stuart.’

  ‘I am, sir,’ Brionny had said. She’d reached out, touched the stone—and suddenly thought of Slade McClintoch, whose eyes had blazed with fire like the emerald’s when he’d come down beside her on the bed in her hotel room.

  With a choked cry, she’d pulled back her hand. Ingram’s bushy brows had risen in surprise.

  ‘Superstitious, Miss Stuart?’ he’d said with a hint of contempt.

  Brionny had grasped at the excuse. ‘No, sir,’ she’d said, somehow managing to smile, ‘but you must admit it’s not every day you get to risk the Curse of the Mali-Mali, is it?’

  Of course, she thought as she unstrapped the webbed belt at her waist and laid it beside the pool, she hadn’t really meant it. She came from a long line of scientists who scoffed at superstition. The gear that hung from her belt was a link to her distinguished heritage—light in weight but heavy in tradition. The battered
water canteen had accompanied her maternal grandfather through the jungles of Asia and Africa. The brass-handled camp knife had been with her father’s father on his explorations in Central America. And the pearl-handled revolver had been her own father’s companion on his expeditions to New Guinea.

  ‘You never know what to expect in the field, Brionny,’ he’d said solemnly when he’d handed it on to her.

  Or in the bedroom, she thought, and her face flamed.

  Dammit! How long was she going to be plagued by the humiliating memory of what Slade McClintoch had done to her? She sank down on a fallen log and began unlacing her boots. It was like having a film clip stuck in her head. All she had to do was let her guard down and it would start to roll.

  She kicked the boots off and peeled away her heavy socks, her jaw tightening as she thought back to the way McClintoch had scooped her up, marched her through the lobby. The humiliation of it. And then he’d kissed her, the typical reaction of a primitive male trying to assert dominance over an assertive female.

  And then—and then…

  Brionny blew out her breath. And then he’d dumped her on the bed, and everything had gone wrong.

  She remembered looking up, seeing the darkness of his eyes.

  He’s going to kiss me again, she’d thought, very calmly.

  She should have slugged him. Or raked his face with her nails. Or kneed him in the groin. She should have done something, dammit! Even throwing back her head and letting out a yell would have been an improvement over what she had done—which was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She’d lain there like the log she was sitting on and-and—

  She sprang to her feet, yanked her T-shirt over her head, and tossed it on a shrub. Who was she kidding? If only she really had lain there like a log! But she hadn’t. What she’d done was rise to the kiss like a trout to a well- cast fly.

  And McClintoch, the bastard, had taken advantage of that instant of insanity. He’d drawn her close in his arms, slipped his tongue between her lips. Sometimes she thought she could still feel the hardness of his body pressing against hers, smell his scent, taste the heat of his mouth. She could feel the brush of his fingers as he lifted her blouse and cupped her breast…