by Janet Dailey
“I walked out of the jungle two weeks ago.” He anticipated her question and answered it.
“Two weeks ago?” That was before she had agreed to marry Chet. “Why didn’t you let… someone know?”
“It was difficult to convince the authorities that I was who I claimed to be. They, too, believed I was dead.” There was a slashing line to his mouth, a cynical smile. “It must have been easier for Lazarus back in the Biblical days to return from the dead.”
“Are you positive I can’t fix you a drink, Mr. Blake?” the housekeeper inquired. “A martini?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
Dina frowned. In the past Blake had always drunk two, if not three martinis before dinner. She had not been wrong. There were more than just surface changes in him during the last two and a half years. Unconsciously she covered her hand with her right, hiding not only the wedding rings Blake had given her, but Chet’s engagement ring, as well.
“The instant they believed Blake’s story,” his mother inserted to carry on his explanation, “he caught the first plane out to come home.” She beamed at him like the adoring and doting mother that she was.
“You should have phoned.” Dina couldn’t help saying it. Forewarned, she might have been better prepared for the new Blake Chandler.
“I did.”
Simultaneously as he spoke, Dina remembered the telephone ringing in the dawn hour as she had left the house. Seconds. She had missed knowing about his return by seconds.
“I’d switched off my extension,” Norma Chandler said, “and Deirdre was wearing her earplugs. Did you hear it, Dina?”
“No. No, I’d already left,” answered Dina.
“When Blake didn’t get any answer here,” Chet continued the story, “he called me.”
“Chet was as stunned as you were, Dina,” Blake smiled, but Dina suspected that she was the only one who noticed the lack of amusement in his voice. She knew her gaze wavered under the keenness of his.
“I came over right away to let you and Mrs. Chandler know,” Chet finished.
“Where were you, Dina?” Sam Lavecek grumped. He was Blake’s godfather and a very old friend of both Blake’s mother and father. Over the years he had become something of a Dutch uncle to Blake, later extending the relationship to Dina. “Chet has been half out of his mind worrying about where you were all day. Played hooky from the office, did you?”
“I was at the marina,” she answered, and turned to Blake. “The Starfish has been leased to a couple, and they plan to sail to Florida for the winter. I spent the day cleaning it up and moving out all of your things.”
“What a pity, boy!” Sam Lavecek sympathized, slapping the arm of his chair. “You always did love going out on that boat. Now, the very day you come home, it’s being turned over to someone else.”
“It’s only a boat, Sam.” There was an enigmatic darkness to his eyes that made his true thoughts impossible to see.
To Dina, in her supersensitive state, he seemed to be implying something else. Perhaps he didn’t object to his boat being loaned to someone else — as long as it wasn’t his wife. Her apprehension mounted.
“You’re right!” the older man agreed with another emphatic slap of his hand on the armchair. “It’s only a boat. And what’s that compared to having you back? It’s a miracle! A miracle!”
The statement brought a surfeit of questions for Blake to answer about the crash and the events that followed. Dina listened to his narrative. Each word that came from his mouth made him seem more and more a stranger.
The small chartered plane had developed engine trouble and had crashed in the teeming jungle. When Blake had come to, the other four people aboard were dead and he was trapped in the twisted wreckage with a broken leg and a few broken ribs. There had been a deep gash on his forehead, still seeping blood, and other cuts and bruises. Dina’s gaze found the scar that had made a permanent crease in his forehead.
Blake didn’t go into too much detail about how he had got out of the plane the following day, but Dina had a vivid imagination and pictured the agony he must have endured fighting his way out with his injuries, letting the wreckage become a coffin for the mangled lifeless bodies of the others. Not knowing when or if he would be rescued, Blake had been forced to set his own leg.
That was something Dina could not visualize him doing. In the past, when there was anything that required professional skill or experience, Blake had always hired someone to do it. So for him to set his own broken bone, regardless of the dire circumstances, seemed completely, out of character, something the man she had known would never have done.
When the emergency supply of rations from the plane had run out, Blake had foraged for his food, his diet consisting of fruits and whatever wild animals he could trap, catch or kill. And this was supposed to be the same Blake Chandler who had considered the killing of wild game a disgusting sport and who dined on gourmet cuisine.
Blake, who despised flies and mosquitoes, told of the insects that swarmed in the jungle, flying, crawling, biting, stinging, until he no longer noticed them. The heat and humidity of the jungle rotted his shoes and clothes, forcing him go improvise articles of clothing from the skins of the animals he had killed. Blake, the meticulous dresser, always presenting such a well-groomed appearance.
As he began his tale of the more than two-year-long walk out of the jungle, Dina discovered the crux of the difference. Blake had left Rhode Island a civilized man and had come back part primitive. She stared at him with seeing eyes.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked indolent and relaxed, yet Dina knew his muscles were like coiled springs, always ready to react with the swiftness of a predatory animal. His senses, his nerves were alert go everything going on around him. Nothing escaped the notice of that hooded dark gaze. From the lurking depths of those hard brown eyes, Blake seemed to be viewing them all with cynical amusement, as if he found the so-called dangers and problems of their civilized world laughable when compared to the battle of survival he had fought and won.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Sam Lavecek commented, frowning when Blake had completed his basically sketchy narrative. “Why did the authorities tell us you were dead after they’d found the wreckage? Surely they must have discovered there was a body missing,” he added bluntly.
“I don’t imagine they did,” Blake answered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.
“Did you bury their bodies, Blake?” his mother asked. “Is that why they didn’t find them?”
“No, mother, I didn’t.” The cynical amusement that Dina suspected he felt was there, glittering through the brown shutters of the indulgent look he gave his mother. “It would have taken a bulldozer to carve out a grave in that tangled mess of brush, trees and roots. I had no choice but to leave them in the plane. Unfortunately, the jungle is filled with scavengers.”
Dina blanched. He sounded so cold and insensitive! Blake had been a passionately vital and volatile man, quick to fly into a temper and quick to love.
What had he become? How much would the savagery in his life in the last two and a half years influence his future? Would his determination become ruthlessness? Would his innate leadership become tyranny? Would his compassion for others become contempt? Would his love turn to lust? Was he a virile man or a male animal? He was her husband, and Dina shuddered at what the answers to those questions might be.
Distantly she heard the housekeeper enter the room to inquire, “What time would you like dinner served this evening, Mrs. Chandler?”
There was hesitation before Norma Chandler replied, “In about an hour, Deirdre. That will be all right for everyone, won’t it?” and received a murmur of agreement.
From the sofa cushions beside her, Chet expanded on his agreement to remark, “That will give you ample time to freshen up before dinner, won’t it, Dina?”
She clutched at the lifeline he had unknowingly tossed her. “Yes, it will.” She wanted desperately to be alone for a few
minutes to sort through her jumbled thoughts, terribly afraid she was overreacting. Rising, she addressed her words to everyone. “Please excuse me. I won’t be long.”
Dina had the disquieting sensation of Blake’s eyes following her as she walked from the room. But he made no attempt to stop her, nor offer to come with her to share a few minutes alone, much to her relief.
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Chapter Three
THE BRIEF SHOWER had washed away the last lingering traces of unreality. Wrapping the sash to her royal blue terry-cloth robe around her middle, Dina walked through the open doorway of the private bath to her bedroom. She moved to the clothes closet at the far corner of the room to choose what she would wear for dinner, all the while trying to assure herself that she was making mountains out of molehills where Blake was concerned.
There was a click, and then movement in her peripheral vision. She turned as the door opened and Blake walked in. Her mouth opened to order out the intruder, then closed. He was her husband. How could she order him out of her bedroom?
His gaze swept the room, located her, and stopped, fixing her with a stare like a predator would his prey. Her fingers clasped the folds of her robe at the throat, her palms moistening with nervous perspiration. Dina was conscious of the implied intimacy of the room and her own nakedness beneath the terry-cloth material. Blood pounded in her head like a thousand jungle drums signaling danger. Vulnerable, she was wary of him.
The brand-new tan suit and tie he wore gave him a cultured look, but she wasn’t taken in by the thin veneer of refinement. It didn’t conceal the latent power of that muscled physique, nor soften the rough edges of his sun-hardened features. Blake closed the door, not releasing her from his pinning gaze, and searing alarm halted her breath.
“I’ve come through hell to get back to you, Dina, yet you can’t seem to walk across a room to meet me.” The accusation was made in a smooth, low tone rife with sardonic amusement.
His words prodded her into movement. Too much time had elapsed since his return for her to rush into his arms. Her steps were stiff, her back rigid as she approached him. She was cautious of him and it showed. Even if she wanted to, she doubted if she could batter down the wall of reserve she had erected. Stopping in front of him, she searched her mind for welcoming words that she could issue sincerely.
“I’m glad you came back safely,” were the ones she could offer that had the ring of truth.
Blake waited… for her kiss. The muscles in her stomach contracted sharply with the realization. After a second’s hesitation, she forced herself on tiptoe to bring her lips against his mouth in a cool kiss. His large hands spanned the back of her waist, their imprint burning through material onto her naked flesh. His light touch didn’t seem at all familiar. It was almost alien.
At her first attempt to end the kiss, his arms became a vise, fingers raking into her silver gold hair to force her lips to his. Her slender curves were pressed against the hard contours of his body. Her heartbeat skittered madly, then accelerated in alarm.
The hungry demand of his bruising mouth asked more than Dina could give to a man who seemed more of a stranger than her husband. She struggled to free herself of his iron hold and was surprised when Blake let her twist away.
Her breathing was rapid and uneven as she avoided his eyes. “I have to get dressed.” She pretended that was her reason for rejecting his embrace. “The others are waiting downstairs.”
Those fathomless brown eyes were boring holes into her. Dina could feel them even as she turned away to retrace her steps to the closet and her much-needed clothes. Her knees felt watery.
“You mean Chet is waiting,” Blake corrected her with deadly softness.
Her blood ran cold. “Of course. Isn’t Chet there with the others?” She feigned ignorance of his meaning and immediately regretted not taking advantage of the opening he had given her to tell him about Chet.
“I’ve had two and a half years of forced celibacy, Dina. How about you?” The dry contempt in his question spun her around, blue fires of indignation flashing in her eyes, but Blake didn’t give her a chance to defend her honor. “How long was it after I disappeared before Chet moved in?”
“He did not move in!” she flashed.
With the swiftness of a swooping hawk, he seized her left hand. His savage grip almost crushed the slender bones of her fingers into a pulp, drawing a gasp of pain from her.
“Figuratively speaking!” His mouth was a thin, cruel line as he lifted her hand. “Or don’t you call it moving in when another man’s ring joins the ones I put on your finger? Did you think I wouldn’t see it?” he blazed. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice the looks the two of you were exchanging and the way all the others watched the three of us?” He released her hand in a violent gesture of disgust. Dina nursed the pain-numbed fingers, cradling them in her right hand. “And neither of you had the guts to tell me!”
“Neither of us really had a chance,” she responded defensively, her temper flaring from the flame of his. “It isn’t an announcement one wants to make in front of others. What was I supposed to say when I saw you standing in the doorway, a husband I thought was dead? ’Darling, I’m so glad you’re alive. Oh, by the way, I’m engaged to another man.’ Please credit me for having a bit more delicacy than that!”
He gave her a long, hard look. His anger was so tightly controlled that it almost frightened her. It was like looking at a capped volcano, knowing that inside it was erupting, and wondering when the lid would blow.
“This is some homecoming,” Blake declared in a contemptuous breath. “A wife who wishes I were still in the grave!”
“I don’t wish that,” she denied.
“This engagement —” he began, bitter sarcasm coating his words.
“The way you say it makes it sound like something sordid,” Dina protested, “and it isn’t. Chet and I have been engaged for barely more than a week. At the time that he proposed to me, I thought you were dead and I was free to accept.”
“Now you know differently. I’m alive. You’re my wife, not my widow. You’re still married to me.” The way he said it, in such cold, concise tones, made it sound like a life sentence.
Dina was trembling and she didn’t know why. “I’m aware of that, Blake.” Her voice was taut to keep out the tremors. “But this isn’t the time to discuss the situation. Your mother is waiting dinner and I still have to get dressed.”
For a few harrowing seconds, she thought he was going to argue. “Yes,” he agreed slowly, “this isn’t the time.”
She heard the door being yanked open and flinched as it was slammed shut. If this was a new beginning for their marriage, it was off to a rotten start. They had argued before Blake had disappeared, and now war had nearly been declared on his return. Dina shuddered and walked to the closet again.
Her arrival downstairs coincided with Deirdre’s announcement that dinner would be served. Blake was there to escort her into the formal dining room. A chandelier of cut crystal and polished brass hung above the table, glittering down on the Irish linen tablecloth set with the best of his mother’s silver and china. An elaborate floral arrangement sat in the center of the buffet, not too near the table so its scent would not interfere with the aroma of the food. Blake was being warmly welcomed home, by everyone but her, and Dina was painfully conscious of the fact.
As they all took their chairs around the Danish styled dining table, the tension in the air was almost electrical. Yet Dina seemed to be the only one who noticed it. Blake sat at the head of the table, the place of honor, with his mother at the opposite end and Chet seated on her right. Dina sat on Blake’s left.
Ever since she had come down, Blake had possessively kept her at his side, as if showing everyone that she was his and effectively separating her from Chet. On the surface, he seemed all smiles, at times giving her glimpses of his former devastating charm. But there was still anger smoldering in brown eyes whenever his gaze was directed to
her.
When everyone was seated, the housekeeper came in carrying a tureen of soup. “I fixed your favorite, Mr. Blake,” she announced, a beaming smile on her square-jawed face. “Cream of asparagus.”
Bless you, Deirdre.” He smiled broadly. “Now that’s the way to welcome a man home!”
The sharp side of his double-edged remark sliced at Dina. She paled at the censure, but otherwise retained a firm hold on her poise.
The meal was an epicurean’s delight, from the soup to the lobster thermidor to the ambrosia of fresh fruit. Blake made all the right comments and compliments, but Dina noticed he didn’t seem to savor the taste of the various dishes the way she remembered he had in the past. She had the impression that dining had been reduced to the simple matter of eating. Food was food however it was prepared, and man needed food to live.
Coffee was served in the living room so Deirdre could clear away the dishes. Again Dina was kept at Blake’s elbow. Chet was on the far side of the room. As she glanced his way, he looked up, smoke blue eyes meeting the clear blue of hers. He murmured a quick excuse to the older woman who had him cornered — a Mrs. Burnside, an old school friend of Norma Chandler — and made his way toward her.
Through the cover of her lashes, Dina dared a glance at Blake and saw the faint narrowing of his gaze as Chet approached. The smile on Chet’s face was strained when he stopped in front of them. Dina guessed he was trying to find a way to tell Blake of their engagement and she wished there was a way to let him know that Blake was aware of it.
“It seems like old times, Blake,” Chet began, forcing a camaraderie into his voice, “coming over to your house for dinner and seeing you and…” His gaze slid nervously to Dina.
“Chet,” Blake interrupted calmly, “Dina has told me about your engagement.”
The room grew so quiet Dina was certain a feather could have been heard dropping on the carpet. All eyes were focused on the trio, as if a brilliant spotlight were shining on them. She discovered that, like everyone else, she was holding her breath. After the savage anger Blake had displayed upstairs, she wasn’t sure what might happen next.