“No,” she waved him off. “I can do this.” She tried to raise herself and groaned. “Maybe yes. Just a little help.”
He put his arms under her and lifted her to a sitting position. She closed her eyes and sagged against him.
“All I see is dark green swirling around.” She leaned back and stared up into his face. “It’s getting dark!”
“Afraid so.”
“I can’t stay here.” She attempted to get up and latched onto him, immediately sinking back down next to him. “Maybe in a few minutes, when the green stops spinning.”
“We’re not going anywhere until tomorrow, Ellie. We’ll be okay on this ledge. I’ll hold you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She shivered. “I can’t believe I’m saying this on a tropical island, but I’m cold.”
He gathered her close to him, pressing her head to his chest. He realized shock was setting in. “We’re in the mountains. It gets cold at night.” Fumbling for the blankets, he draped them over Ellie. She snuggled deeper into his embrace. “I think you should stay awake for the next few hours.”
“I don’t think I can sleep. I’m too frightened I would roll over and just keep on going down.”
“I told you I wouldn't let go.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’d take you with me?”
He chuckled, loving her humor that came out when they were in a tight spot. “No. Tell me why you decided to come to Bella Isla.”
She stiffened within his embrace.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was hoping to forget the past few weeks.”
He couldn’t help the alarm signals going off in his brain. Something in her voice warned him he wasn’t going to like what she said next. “Why?”
“As I told you earlier, I was in Bella Isla working as a governess.” Fear laced her voice.
“What happened, Ellie?”
“I’m not sure telling you while suspended on a small ledge hundreds of feet up is such a good idea.”
He pulled back and studied her expression, shrouded in the shadows of night. “What am I not going to like?”
She inhaled a deep breath then began, “Mr. Martinez, the man I worked for. is responsible for this revolution.”
“How do you know that?” he asked in a voice he was amazed sounded so calm. Mr. Martinez was a powerful man on the island so he shouldn’t be surprised but how had Ellie gotten caught up in a plot against the government?
She put some space between them, drawing the blankets up around her. “I overheard him plotting with the chief of police. That’s why King Kong and Godzilla were after me.”
“Excuse me. King Kong? Godzilla? You’ve lost me.” Which, when dealing with Ellie, he shouldn’t be that surprised, he thought. He squinted, trying to figure out the expression on her face. It was too dark.
“That’s what I called the two men who followed me into the bar. Remember, they both paid us a visit to your hotel room?”
“What else aren’t you telling me? Maybe you’d better start from the beginning. We have all night.”
“Oh, it’s a short story. I overheard a conversation I wasn’t supposed to. I was held captive. I escaped. I met you in a hotel bar. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“How did you escape?” Stunned at her recap, he pulled back even further.
“I climbed out of a window which, I might add, was an act of a desperate woman since, as you well know, I hate heights.”
“Don’t you think going into a bar and meeting a stranger was an act of a desperate woman?” He shook his head, trying to figure out Ellie.
“You know I thought the very same thing when I stepped into that place and scanned the bar for anyone who looked halfway nice. I was about to give up and throw myself on the mercy of those two goons when I heard you speaking to your friend in English. I knew my prayers had been answered. I wouldn’t be dragged back to the villa after all.”
“So those people firing at us might not have been after me because of my company?” Through his amazement, his anger began to assert itself. He’d been beating himself over that possibility for the past few days.
“No,” her answer came out in a rasp.
“You led me to think I was responsible for getting you into a terrible mess?”
She nodded, looking away from him.
“Why?”
“I wasn’t sure who to trust. I needed to get out of Bella Isla and I was afraid because of what I knew.”
“You’re right you should have been afraid. You should have told me. It could have made a difference in what I did.”
“I know that now. But at the time all I wanted to do was get off the island, then tell someone what I overheard. The revolution wasn’t supposed to start for another week, at least according to what my employer said. I was so scared I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I don’t believe this,” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. “I could have warned the president. Maybe stopped it before it begun.”
“You knew him?”
“Yes, and he’s a good man.”
“So he would have taken your call?”
“Yes,” he said between clenched teeth.
She glanced back at him. “Does this mean you won’t hold me through the night?”
“To think I had berated myself for dragging you into the thick of the revolution, when it might have been the other way around.”
“The key word is might. The people after us could have been because of you and your company. Once the revolution started, I don’t see why Mr. Martinez would have cared if I knew he was behind it.”
“I’ve met the man at several functions. And you had a right to be afraid, Ellie. He’s dangerous. Not someone you would want to cross.”
“Yes, exactly. Now you know my dilemma.”
“Whatever possessed you to take a job working for a man like that?”
“I didn’t know much about him. He does have the cutest little girl. Besides, the agency usually screens the applicants. I’ve never had a reason to doubt them in the past.”
“Well, you do now. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“When? When we were dodging bullets? Or, when we were trudging through the thick jungle? Or better yet, when the plane crashed into the trees? Would it have made any difference?”
“When you met me in the bar?”
“Oh, sure, I was going to walk up to a perfect stranger and say Mr. Martinez is plotting to overthrow the government with the chief of police.”
Frustrated, he shoved his hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. “This changes everything.”
“How so? We’re still stuck on a ledge in the middle of the jungle, practically on top of a mountain.”
“When we get to civilization, and we will, we may have a powerful enemy looking for us.”
Ellie dropped her head, smoothing out the blanket in her lap. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess. This definitely has curtailed my desire for adventure and to see the world.”
Her regret coupled with the fear in her voice drove any anger from Slade. He captured her hand and brought it up between them. “It wasn’t your fault, Ellie. You did the best you could under the circumstances. Next time I just need to know all the details. It might make a difference.”
“Next time. I just told you there would be no more adventures.”
“Well, right now, we still have to get out of this one. We’ll worry about the future later.” As he said the word future, he began to picture Ellie as a part of his. He wanted to deny the feelings he had toward her, but it was getting harder and harder to do that. That would be something he could deal with after they make it back to the United States.
CHAPTER 8
Ellie limped down the street of San Carlos, a resort on the northern side of the island, beside Slade, stunned that the seaside town appeared as though nothing out of the ordinary was wrong. “I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. Are we still on Bella Isla? Does i
t look like a revolution broke out on the island five days ago?”
“No, in fact, they’re getting ready for a festival.” He stopped on the corner of the two main thoroughfares and scanned the area, his brow knitted in a deep frown.
Ellie noted the colorful lanterns being hung on posts and the banners displayed outside the shops. “I’m really back on that ledge clinging to it for dear life and this is all a dream. Or better yet, the bump on my head accounts for an out of body experience.”
“If so, we are both experiencing the same thing. I know when someone is shooting at me and, believe me, those bullets whizzing by my head were real. Let’s go inside this cafe and find out what happened the past few days.”
“And while we’re there, let’s eat. My stomach gave up growling its hunger two days ago, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t eat a refrigerator full of food. I have to admit, the bright side of our ordeal is that I’ll get to eat anything I want for days. And I still probably won’t gain back the weight I’ve shed, sweating in a jungle that was as hot as a sauna and climbing a mountain that was worse than running up a flight of stairs in a thirty story tall building.”
As they entered the small cafe, everyone turned to stare at them. Ellie realized they looked like two wretched souls who had dragged their poorly clad bodies into town and into this restaurant. She smiled, hoping to put the people at ease. They continued to stare back at her as though they had never seen a woman in rags with pieces of her clothing hanging in streamers from her body. Certainly not the latest in haute couture.
While Slade spoke with the owner, Ellie gave up trying to reassure the patrons. Instead, she walked to a table in the corner and sat, too tired to stand another moment, too tired to care that they definitely didn’t look like they belonged in this quaint cafe. But she hadn’t realized how weary she was until she was off her feet and sitting on something more comfortable than the ground or a rock.
When Slade joined her at the table, he was smiling, all his tension gone. “The revolution is over. It lasted only two days and never reached San Carlos. It was contained to the capital and the surrounding countryside. Mr. Martinez was captured trying to leave the country.”
“That’s too bad. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“We can get something to eat here, then go to one of the hotels on the beach and pursue all the fantasies we’ve had over the past few days.”
Ellie indicated her torn, dirty jump suit that she wanted to burn the minute she took it off. “Looking like this?”
“We’ll stop at one of those boutiques on the way to the hotel. I ordered us some food to tide us over until dinner.”
Ellie started to say she could eat five dinners and still not be full when she saw two waitresses bringing trays laden with plates and plates of food. She knew they were all for Slade and her. She didn’t say another thing until she had finished with the first plate, filled with a rice and conch dish that tasted like manna from heaven.
“This is delicious. Of course, it could taste like cardboard and I wouldn’t care so long as it didn’t have coconut in it.”
“I specifically made sure nothing I ordered had coconut in it.”
That was the extent of her conversation with Slade until she had eaten every morsel of food placed in front of her. “Now, on to clothing us and a bath,” she announced, pushing back her chair. Rejuvenated after eating, she didn’t want to waste another moment wearing her jump suit. It felt as though her skin were crawling. She imagined layers of dirt did that to a person.
Three doors down from the cafe, Ellie discovered a small boutique that had beautiful multicolored skirts of flowing softness that fell about her legs like kaleidoscopic clouds, and white blouses with lace trim so delicate she was afraid to touch it. Before she tried on the clothing, the owner allowed her to wash off in the back room, not so much out of kindness as out of necessity. If Ellie hadn’t flashed a charge card, the woman wouldn’t have let her into the place.
With one of her new outfits on and a sponge bath that at least took the top layer of dirt off, Ellie felt half human again when she stepped out of the boutique to wait for Slade to appear from a men’s store a half a block down the street. She glanced about her at the resort town, the air of festivities beginning to descend. Shops were starting to close up, early even for an island country whose pace was much slower than in the United States.
When Slade appeared on the sidewalk, Ellie’s breath caught at the sight of him. He, too, had changed into a new outfit, a pair of black pants and a black shirt. That color suited him, she decided as he approached her, his gaze linked with hers. The message in his eyes was clear. He was attracted to her. She couldn’t stop her pulse from reacting to that heady knowledge. She took several deep breaths to steady herself, but nothing seemed to help. She felt lightheaded and overwhelmed, all at the same time.
“I thought I better wear these or we might not get a hotel room,” he said when he paused in front of her, only a foot away. “I see we think along the same line.” His survey of her was slow, warmth flaring in his gaze as it skimmed the length of her.
She breathed deeply again and realized that Slade had put on some kind of cologne. The scent teased her with a veiled hint of musk. “I had the pleasure of throwing my jump suit in the trash,” she finally replied because he was looking at her so intently she was determined to slow things down. Ever since meeting Slade, she felt as if she were on a wild ride into a surrealistic world where nothing was as it seemed. But San Carlos was one step away from reality.
He held out his arm for her to slip hers through. “Now for our last destination.”
Slade chose the plushest hotel on the exclusive strip of beach in San Carlos. He insisted on the best suite available and ignored the strange stares they received as they went to their room, with several paper bags and one dirty duffel bag that had seen better days but no “real” luggage. His lavish tip received a beaming smile from the bellhop and a quick departure.
Then Ellie was alone with Slade, in a hotel suite with two bedrooms connected by a living room. Suddenly she wasn’t sure what to do, where to place her shopping bags of clothes and various female sundries that she had dreamed about while trudging through the jungle.
Her indecision must have been written all over her face, because Slade said, “It’ll be your call, Ellie.” And she knew he meant she would be the one to decide if they shared a bedroom.
After the fifth move as a child, she had learned to withdraw into herself when she felt herself getting too close. That didn’t change when she finally went to live with her grandmother. And it didn’t change when she became engaged. She stared at Slade and realized that if she gave anymore of herself to him, she wouldn’t be able to mend the pieces of her heart. “You can have the larger of the bedrooms. All I want is a bath and a bed.”
“Okay,” he said, his expression masked as he picked up his duffel bag and his sack. “I’ll meet you back here in three hours for dinner.”
Ellie watched him walk toward the larger bedroom and started to say something. Her throat closed as he shut the door. She swallowed several times, then took a breath that wasn’t nearly enough air. She was just doing what she always did, protecting herself, but then why did her chest ache?
Because she loved him and that wasn’t going to change, whether she stayed in her own bedroom and slept alone tonight or not. But if she gave herself to him, that would change everything. She took a step toward her room, then another one. She hesitated, glancing back at his door, closed.
That’s best for both of us. We live in two different worlds. Before long this will be a dream. That’s all.
* * *
A pounding sound penetrated her sleep, and Ellie felt herself being drawn toward wakefulness. Nestling against the softness of the bed, she resisted the lure to open her eyes, wanting to remain in the world of sleep where her dreams were of Slade. The noise continued, and she eased one eyelid up, the sound of Slade grumbling in the living
room of the suite.
Ellie knew she was way too curious for her own good. After all, her listening to the conversation between Mr. Martinez and the police chief was what got her into this situation in the first place. Even if she hadn’t intended to listen in on the conversation, she should have covered her ears and gotten herself out of that hallway as fast as her feet could carry her. Now, when she heard loud voices coming from the other room, she felt the tug of curiosity again and slipped from the bed, shrugging into her robe as she went to her bedroom door and eased it open a few inches.
“But, Mr. Calvert, people want to know about your ordeal. Everyone thought you were dead. I’m the first one to arrive here, but others will follow soon. Your fiancée is beside herself and is flying down as we speak.”
Fiancée? He never said anything about one while kissing her. Ellie tensed, gripping the lapels of the robe together as she huddled closer to the crack in the door.
“Fiancée?”
“Have you forgotten Elizabeth Hanson so soon? Of course, from what I heard you checked in with a woman. Is that true, Mr. Calvert? Who is she?”
“I’ll give you two seconds to remove yourself from this room or I will.”
The steel thread in Slade’s voice spoke of a man who would definitely carry out his threat. Obviously the other man thought so, too, because the next thing Ellie heard was the door slamming shut. She scrambled back from the ajar door.
Slade was engaged? No, he couldn’t be. But then she had been betrayed once before. What did she really know about Slade Calvert? Certainly he hadn’t mentioned this Elizabeth Hanson—not once. Hurt began to fester in a wound she’d thought had scarred over.
After Slade knocked on her door, it gently swung open. He entered the bedroom, a frown carving lines deep into his face. “You overheard?”
Was he upset because he had a guilty conscience? Or, was he upset because he had been found out? “Who was that?” Ellie managed to keep her voice from shaking with her building anger.
“No one of importance.”
“Well, he has you frowning. I would say you let him get to you.”
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