“Where you goin’?”
“Gotta check something out, but I’ll be back.”
“You going back to where I got shot?”
“Yeah. I want to have a look around.”
“You watch yourself, hear?”
“I hear.” Sam rested a hand on Horatio’s shoulder. “This is my fault,” he said. “I’ve brought you trouble. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. We done had us a little adventure, that’s all. That’s...” His eyes drifted closed.
“Stay with him,” Sam told Delight. He took Lisa’s arm and led her out of the room. “I’ve got to go back for Benjamin,” he said.
“Let me come with you.”
He shook his head. “Delight may need you. Stay here. I won’t be long.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “What were you doing out in the woods?”
“I went to the voodoo ceremony.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How’d you like it?”
“Don’t ask.”
“What about Benjamin? Where’d you run into him?”
“He was there, at voodoo. I saw him when I was leaving. I tried to get away, but he followed me.”
He drew her into his arms. “It’s been a bitch of a day,” he said.
Lisa leaned into him. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I can’t leave him lying there, Lisa.”
“What if he’s...” She took a steadying breath. “I told him to stop. I warned him. I...” She covered her face with her hands. “I’m not sure I could live with myself if I’ve killed him.”
He took her hands away. “Benjamin’s a killer and a drug dealer, Lisa. If you hadn’t stopped him, only God knows what would have happened. You did what you had to do. I want you to remember that.”
“What are you going to do when you find him? I mean, if he’s alive. If he isn’t...” She shook her head, unable to go on.
“Bring him back here. Patch him up. Then try to find Hargreaves in the morning and turn Benjamin over to him.”
“I’m afraid,” Lisa said. “If anything happens to you—”
“Nothing will.”
She touched his face. “Be careful, Sam.”
“I always am.” He kissed her. “But especially now, Lisa. Because I’ve got you to come back to.”
“Yes,” she said. “You’ve got me.”
He went out and got onto the Harley. She stood at the door, watching until he was out of sight. Then she went back into the house and into the bedroom to see if there was anything she could do to help Delight.
* * *
Sam approached the wooded area cautiously. At the edge of it he stopped the Harley, got off and rolled it into the trees. He left it there and began searching for Benjamin on foot. The night sky was overcast and the smell of rain was in the air.
He went slowly. Using his flashlight, he found the tracks the motorcycle had made. He’d gone twenty, maybe thirty yards before he’d heard the shot that hit Horatio. If he followed the tracks, he’d find Benjamin.
He hoped for Lisa’s sake that she hadn’t killed him. He knew her pretty well now, knew that no matter how justified it might have been, the fact that she had killed a man would haunt her for the rest of her life. Besides, Benjamin was worth more to him alive than dead because he knew where Montoya was.
Sam moved silently through the trees just in case Benjamin hadn’t been hurt as badly as he’d first thought. He reached the place where he was pretty sure he’d left Lisa. He stopped and looked around. There wasn’t any sign of Benjamin.
He walked in an ever-widening circle around the area, sure he was close to the spot where Lisa had shot Benjamin. Could he be wrong? He went back to where he’d first looked, leaned down and, with his flashlight, carefully studied the ground.
The leaves had been flattened, part of a fern broken off. He held the flashlight closer. Some of the leaves were stained with blood.
Benjamin had been here, but now he was gone.
Either he’d walked out or someone had dragged him out. But who? My God, who?
* * *
Lisa was out on the porch waiting for Sam when he wheeled the Harley up to the steps.
“Oh, no,” she whispered when she saw he was alone. “He was dead, wasn’t he?”
He hauled the machine up onto the porch before he answered. “No, he wasn’t dead.”
“Then—then where is he?”
He wiped a hand across his face. “Damned if I know.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“He was gone when I got there.”
“Maybe—maybe you were in the wrong place.” Her voice rose. “He had to be there.”
“He wasn’t. He’s gone.” He gripped her arms. “Come back in the house, Lisa.”
“If you looked...if he wasn’t there, then—then somebody took him away.” She stared at him, her eyes wide with fear. “There’s somebody else here. Somebody who—”
“Stop it!” He put his arms around her and held her close. “If Horatio is all right, we’ll leave in the morning. I’ll find a phone so I can call Hargreaves. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“You’ll do what I say.” He gripped her arms. “Don’t you understand?” he said, anger and frustration catching up with him. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you. From now on you’ll do what I tell you. You shouldn’t have left the house tonight. If you hadn’t, none of this would have happened.”
“But Benjamin was here in Trinity,” she protested. “If I’d been in the house alone he might have...” The thought terrified her. She swayed toward Sam and he tightened his arms around her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, Lisa, baby.” He held her close, then picked her up and carried her into the house and laid her down on the straw mat where Horatio and Delight had been sleeping. There was no lantern here, only the light from two candles.
“I’m here,” he said. “Nothing’s going to hurt you.” He smoothed the hair back from her face. “I have to check on Horatio. Will you be all right for a couple of minutes?”
Lisa nodded. “Go ahead, Sam. I’m okay now.”
“Good girl.” He kissed her. “I’ll be right back.”
Horatio was asleep. Sam put a hand on his forehead. It was cool to his touch; there wasn’t any fever.
“He goin’ to be all right?” Delight whispered.
“Yes, I’m sure he will be.” Sam handed her a couple of aspirins he’d taken out of the first-aid kit earlier. “If he wakes up, give him these.”
“Thank you for helping him, Mr. Sam.”
“You and Horatio took us in when we needed help. It’s me who should be thanking you.” Sam rested a hand on her shoulder. “Your Horatio’s a good man,” he said.
“That he is. We been together over thirty years. Couldn’t hardly live without him.”
“You won’t have to.”
He went out and closed the door. Lisa was sitting up on the mat, her back against the wall.
“How is he?” she asked.
“He’s okay. No fever.”
“Thank God.” She patted the mat. “You’d better get some sleep, Sam.”
“Yeah.” He yawned. “It’s been a doozy of a day. The guy that fixes tires wasn’t there when we got to the village. We hung around for three or four hours before he showed up. Then it took him another couple of hours to fix it.” He shook his head. “He did the best he could, but I’m not sure how long the tire will last.” He stretched and yawned again. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, and with a grin teased, “Care to join me?”
“If you promise not to take advantage of me.” She smiled. It was a weak smile, but the fact that she made the effort meant she was feeling better.
He poked a finger at his chest. “Moi? Take advantage of you? My dear, how could you think such a thing?” He reached down, pulled her up beside him, gave her a bear hug and said, “I k
inda like you, little lady.”
It wasn’t a declaration of undying love, but it was something.
The water in the shower was still warm from the heat of the day. They stood under it for a few moments, just holding each other, before they bathed. He teased her a little, drawing soap foam out from the tips of her breasts and blowing the bubbles away. But that’s all he did because he knew she was near exhaustion. So even though he wanted to fool around, he didn’t. Instead he turned and said, “Wash my back.”
When they came out of the shower, she put the flour-sack nightgown on and he wrapped a towel around his waist. “Feel like I could sleep for a week.” He stretched, then draped his arm around her shoulder. “Hope you don’t mind the accommodations tonight.”
“They’re fine,” Lisa said. “Horatio and Delight have been sleeping on the floor ever since we arrived. If they didn’t mind, neither will I.”
They reached the front room and she lay down on one of the mats. Sam stood over her. “You going to take your nightgown off?”
Lisa shook her head. “Delight might come out. I’d better not.”
“You could put it within grabbing distance. I like to feel you naked beside me, but if you don’t want to...”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to.”
“Then do it.”
“You’re a tough man to argue with.” She pointed to the candles. When he blew them out, she took her gown off and they lay down together.
“This is more like it,” he said when she came into his arms. He held her without speaking. “You’ve had a bad time, Lisa. I’m sorry.”
“If only I knew that I haven’t killed him.”
“He was alive when we left him. Maybe he walked out by himself.” Maybe, but he doubted it. Which meant that there’d been somebody else with Benjamin, somebody who knew that he and Lisa were here. If Horatio was all right in the morning, he and Lisa were going to get the hell out of Trinity.
“Sam.” She sat up. “Sam, I just remembered something Benjamin said. He told me he’d take me to Port Antonio. He said maybe his boss would want to kill me, but that he’d take me with him on the boat so that—so that I could entertain them on the way to South America.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sam said under his breath.
She started shaking again. “I’d have jumped overboard before I let them lay a hand on me.”
He put his arms around her. “It’s all over, Lisa. You’re safe.”
She caressed his face. “Make love to me, Sam. Help me to forget everything that’s happened tonight—the things I saw at the voodoo ceremony. Benjamin. And poor Horatio lying wounded in the next room. Let’s pretend for a little while that none of it ever happened. I want—”
“I know what you want.” He kissed her eyelids, her nose, her mouth. He trailed a line of kisses over her ears and down to her throat. And tightened his arms around her because he knew he never wanted to let her go.
He kissed her shoulders and her breasts. He nuzzled his head into her tummy and circled her navel with his tongue. She held his head as he rose to take one hard nipple between his teeth, and gripped his shoulders when he buried his head between her breasts.
She said, “Oh, Sam. Oh, darling.”
She made as though to move under him and he said, “Not yet, my Lisa. Tonight is for you, sweetheart.”
He feathered kisses along her ribcage and her belly and over the rise of her hips. He parted her legs and ran hot kisses along the inside of her thighs.
“Sam?” A whisper of sound. Of passion and uncertainty. “Sam?”
He gently cupped, then kissed her. “It’s all right.” He took the hands that might try to push him away and held them to her sides when he began to kiss her.
She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. Not until she said, “I have to touch you. Let me touch you.”
When he released her, she laced her fingers through his hair. “Oh, Sam,” she said.
She’d never known anything like this before. She was on fire, whimpering in ecstasy, clutching his shoulders, whispering his name over and over again.
He reached up to caress her breasts and squeezed the tips between his fingers. Her body rose, yearning, straining. But he said, “Not yet, Lisa. Not yet, little love.”
He stroked her hips. He made her wait. But when he touched her like that again it was too much. A shock ran through her. Her body lifted and soared. She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that rose in her throat.
He came up over her. Into her. “Again,” he whispered. “Again for me, Lisa.”
“Sam!” His name was a strangled whisper in the quiet of the room. She was out of control, his to do with as he would. She lifted her body to his and held him as he held her.
Together they raced toward that final moment. She couldn’t bear it, had to bear it because this was Sam and because she loved him. Loved him.
“Tell me.” He moved against her. “Tell me, Lisa.”
But there were no words, for this—this that was happening to her—went beyond words, beyond thought. There was only feeling, an emotion too big for words. She clung to him. She kissed him and, when she did, it happened for both of them, fast and hot and so unbearably good she wept.
He kissed her mouth; he kissed her tears. And held her as though he would never let her go.
Chapter 15
The following morning Horatio sat up in bed and declared he was hungry enough to eat a whale all by himself, but he’d settle for half-a-dozen fried eggs and a couple of plaintains.
Sam checked his leg. The small incision looked good and the skin around the wound was cool. He put a clean bandage on, told Horatio he’d better stay in bed for the day, and that he was almost as good as new.
“Lisa and I are going to head out this morning,” he said when he finished.
“I be mighty sorry to see you and your missus go.”
His missus. Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Sometimes, like last night, he wished she was, wished he could look forward to a whole forty or fifty years of the kind of wondrous joy they’d shared only a few hours ago.
Their bed had been a mat on the floor, but it hadn’t mattered, not as long as they were together. He adored her warmth and her passion. Maybe he even loved her. But he’d made a mistake about marriage once, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake again. He was a cautious man, he told himself, not one to rush into things.
“We have to leave this morning,” he said to Horatio. “I have some things to take care of.”
“Uh-huh.” Horatio raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe you be just vacationing. You act like maybe you be a policeman.”
Sam nodded. “That’s what I am, Horatio. I should have told you before. I had no right to involve you in this without telling you.”
“You didn’t involve me. I just happened to get in the way of a bullet.” His blue eyes were curious. “Did you shoot the fella that was chasing your woman?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want Horatio to know it had been Lisa who pulled the trigger.
“He dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But you went looking for him last night.”
Sam snapped the first-aid kit shut and went to stand by the window. “I found the place where he’d fallen when I shot him, but he wasn’t there. I don’t think he could have managed to walk out by himself. He had to have somebody working with him.”
Horatio looked hard at Sam and after a moment’s hesitation asked, “You with some kind of drug agency?”
Now it was Sam’s turn to hesitate. But because he respected Horatio and owed him an honest answer, he said, “Yes, I am.”
“‘Cause some folks hereabouts grow a little ganja.”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “I’m after bigger game, an escaped murderer who’s part of a group that’s manufacturing something a lot more dangerous than ganja.”
“This man you’re after, he be killing people?
”
“A lot of people.”
“Then goin’ after him be mighty dangerous business.”
“I’m not alone, Horatio, I’m working with the Jamaican police. I was supposed to meet them in Maroon Town, but the man who shot you yesterday got there first. Lisa was injured, and I had to bring her here.”
“You goin’ back to Maroon Town when you leave?”
Sam nodded. “I have to.” He counted out five twenties and handed them to Horatio. “I hope this is enough. I’ve got to keep some in case I need it.”
“It be more than enough, ’specially since you had to sleep on the floor last night.”
“It was okay. We didn’t mind.”
“Bet you didn’t at that.” Horatio chuckled. “‘Peers to me with a pretty little missus like you got it don’t matter where you sleep, so long’s the two of you are together.”
The two of them. Together.
He shook Horatio’s hand. Lisa came in to say goodbye. She was dressed in the T-shirt and cutoff jeans Delight had mended. She looked as fresh and as beautiful as though she’d slept all night in a feather bed instead of in his arms on a mat on the floor.
She kissed Horatio’s cheek and hugged Delight. These wonderful people had taken them in. She would never forget them.
Sam took her hand to lead her outside. “Ready?” he asked.
Ready, but reluctant to say goodbye.
Delight came out onto the porch with them. “You be careful,” she told Sam. “You be taking good care of your missus.”
“I will.” Sam put his arm around Lisa and helped her onto the back of the Harley.
Lisa waved another goodbye. As they headed out of the village, she turned to look back one more time before they took the narrow path that led to the road that would take them back to Maroon Town.
* * *
There were only a couple of small trucks on the road this morning. Both of them were loaded with breadfruit and cassavas. “For the market in Kingston,” Sam said.
This was wild and rugged country, hauntingly beautiful with all kinds of lush, green plants growing along the road and up the mountain slopes. Now and then on a turn in the road they could see the turquoise sea below, a cruise ship, a few fishing boats.
Moonlight Lady Page 17