The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

by Kathleen Creighton

  She slid her eyes sideways in order to steal a look at him, and it seemed like the riskiest thing she’d ever done. His features were almost lost in the deepening shadows, sandy brown hair hanging across his forehead, beard-stubble dark on his cheeks and jaws. His eyes seemed the only light in all that darkness, like beacons on the shore…and she thought, if she could only find her way past the reefs and shoals to that promised harbor…

  Her heart pounded with terrifying force, jarring her body, shaking her voice. “You must have a jillion questions.”

  “Well, no, actually, I think the general ’bout covered it.” He gave his nose a quizzical scratch with a forefinger, then lifted his head and aimed a look straight into her eyes. “Except for one thing.”

  She held her breath. “What’s that?” There was something about his eyes…

  “Why you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

  She hung there, quivering like a water droplet at the edge of a faucet, utterly helpless. Knowing there was nothing she could do to prevent what was about to happen, but desperately afraid to let it go. Trying not to speak or to breathe, just to postpone the inevitable for one…more…moment. And yet, bravely facing it, refusing to turn away or hide behind handkerchief or hands.

  “At first, I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she whispered at last, lifting her drenched and defiant eyes to his pain-filled ones. “You weren’t exactly the most sterling-looking character, you know. And I was on my own…I didn’t know who was supposed to contact me. For all I knew, you could have been one of them.”

  “And later?” The pain in his eyes had leaked into his voice. “You must have known, after I turned down the money you offered. After I tried to talk you out of going through with it.” He was squinting at her in spite of the growing dusk, as if she were a light too bright for his eyes. “You couldn’t have told me then?”

  “I wanted to. I thought…I was protecting you.”

  He flinched from her, suddenly wary as a wild animal circling a tempting morsel. “Protecting me? Protecting yourself, you mean.”

  “Yes! That, too. I’m sorry…”

  “You didn’t trust me.”

  “I didn’t know you! I wanted to.” She lifted her chin, riled and defensive. “But you wouldn’t…talk to me. You wouldn’t tell me anything about yourself. How was I supposed to know I could trust you?”

  “I guess,” he said wryly, “I thought my ‘sterling character’ would shine through all by itself.” He paused, then in a different, huskier voice, said, “Words don’t mean anything, you know. I could have told you a dozen different lies about who I was…where I came from. How would you know what the truth was?”

  She gave a high, desperate laugh and futilely touched the back of her hand to her streaming nose. “How do I know? How do I know now?”

  And yet she did know. Long before he said it.

  “Actions-that’s the only thing that matters. I’m here, aren’t I?” And he was scowling at her, his face as fierce as an embattled warrior’s behind the barricade of his folded arms.

  She stared back at him for what must have been an eternity, listening to the echoes of his words inside her head…the accompanying beat of her heart, weighing risks, contemplating terrifying uncertainties. Then, with what she felt certain must be her whole world, her entire existence on the line, she closed her eyes and took one step forward.

  And…a miracle happened. At least it felt that way to her, just as it had that day in the plaza, the first time he’d saved her from disaster. Instead of the unyielding barrier reef of those folded arms, she met enveloping warmth…heard the whisper of an exhalation…the thunder of a pounding heart. Then the arms came around her and with a glad little sob she went sailing into their harbor.

  He held her at first like a just-rescued survivor, dazed, not yet willing to believe the miracle was real. But the woman in his arms was vibrant flesh and bone, no doubt about that, and the warm tears soaking into his shirtfront were real, too. Cautiously, he brushed his lips across the top of her head. Then, with an easing in his muscles and in his heart, he buried his face in her hair and tried with all his being to drink in the scent, the very essence of her. His senses told him she smelled of the jungle…of sweat and dust and bug repellent. His heart said orange blossoms and sunshine.

  For a long time he simply held her, buffeted by emotions and a rising wind neither of them noticed or cared about, rocked by their two hearts bumping against each other like out-of-sync dancers. Then, dazed and still disbelieving, he eased one arm from around her, tipped her chin up and kissed her.

  Her lips were cool and wet and salty with her tears…his senses insisted that was so. How was it, then, that they tasted so warm and soft and sweet to him? Sweet…and with just a touch of cinnamon…

  Long-dormant emotions and desires swelled and surged to life within him; laughter and sobs fought it out inside his chest. Some of each found their way into his mouth and joined happily, giddily with hers. He felt her fingers touching his face, shakily, wonderingly, as if she thought he were the miracle. Crazy woman…

  He took her face gently in his hands and held it still so he could look at her…convince himself that she was real. And…was that shimmering golden glow in her eyes really for him? He touched her mouth with his, lightly, yearningly, asking her that question. And felt her lips form a smile as her eyelids came down on a welling flood and drenched them all over again. He laughed as he sipped her salty-sweet tears; he could only laugh, because he had no words… Miracles, he supposed, did that to a man.

  We have to get out of here.

  Oh, he hadn’t forgotten about that. Those words had been hopping around in his mind for a while, now, trying to get his attention. He held them at bay a moment longer, just for one last hungry kiss before he said them out loud, in a growling whisper against her mouth.

  Her head moved quickly, urgently with her whispered, “Yes…”

  He took her by the shoulders and put her a little distance from him-it was the only way he could think clearly. “The guard,” he said, breathing like a long-distance runner.

  “There’s only one…”

  “He has an automatic rifle-how many bullets do you think he’d need? No-what we need is some kind of distraction…”

  A distraction. Ellie stared at him through a blur. Then she shook her head and furiously brushed away the last of her tears. Keep your wits about you, Rose Ellen. Oh, but it was hard, hard, when her wits and her world had been shaken and turned upside-down.

  She sniffed-and smelled… “That cigar you were smoking,” she whispered urgently, clutching at McCall’s arms. “Where is it?”

  Startled, he looked at his hands. “I don’t know-”

  “I can smell it. You must have dropped it. Never mind-” she caught again at his arms as he turned, looking at the ground around him. “Why were you smoking a cigar anyway? What happened to your cigarettes?”

  He made a wry face, then looked mysteriously smug. “All out. Actually, I-”

  “Never mind that. What about your lighter? Do you still have your lighter?” It was growing darker-too dark in the sheltered lanai to see her face clearly-but he could hear the excitement in her voice.

  Her excitement, her urgency were contagious. McCall’s heart knocked against his ribs as he drew the lighter from his pocket. “Right here.” His hand shook a little as he held it out to her; he was pretty sure he knew where she was headed with this. And it was a crazy idea. Completely crazy…

  “You’re going to think I’m nuts…”

  “Sister, I don’t think, I know you are.” But he was smiling when he said it, and let her hear it in his voice.

  “No, listen-” and he felt her hands again, tightly gripping his arms. “There’s this legend in my family. It goes all the way back to my great-great…I don’t know how many greats…grandmother. Her name was Lucinda Rosewood-my mom’s named after her. Anyway, the story is, she saved herself and her baby from a Sioux raiding party when she
set fire to her house and barn and fields and then tied her baby up in her apron and climbed down the well and hid there while the fire burned all the way to the river.”

  “But that’s-” McCall began. But she cut him off with a hand pressed across his mouth.

  “No, wait-that’s not all. See, my mother remembered that when she was kidnapped and held hostage by the mobsters who were after my father-remember, I told you about that? She was being held in this high-rise office building that was still under construction, and she remembered Great-great-grandmother Lucinda, and so what she did was, she took off her clothes and used them to start a fire, and then she hid behind the ceiling panels while the alarms brought the police and fire fighters to the rescue.”

  She waited, holding her breath. McCall seemed to be holding his, too. Cautiously, she took her hand away from his mouth. He still didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t you see?” she hissed. “It’s almost like fate. Or Providence or something.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “My Aunt Gwen was always a great believer in Providence…” She tilted her head back and looked at the thatched roof over their heads. “That would do the trick. If we could get it going good…”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Like what?” She caught her breath as a wind gust shook the lanai. “You mean, the storm? The wind-”

  “No,” said McCall, “I mean, a place to hide. We haven’t got a well or a ceiling to crawl into.”

  Ellie was gazing thoughtfully at the guard, who had apparently tired of standing against the wall and had found himself a seat out of the wind. He was now sitting in the wide-open mouth of the snarling stone beast, with one booted foot propped against an upthrust fang.

  “How about that?” she whispered, jerking her head toward the guard.

  “Looks to me like it’s taken.”

  “No, no-there’s another one here, here on this side-see it? It’s under all those vines.”

  “There’s only room for one of us,” McCall said after a moment. “You take it. I think I can get over the wall. If I can get it between me and the guard, I’d have a good chance to make it to the jungle before he gets a clear shot. You wait for your chance when he goes after me, then you do the same.”

  “I don’t like the idea of us splitting up,” Ellie said, chewing on her lip. “What if we can’t find each other again?”

  He’d already thought of that-and had vowed to himself that in the future there was only one thing that was going to separate him from this crazy woman, and that was a possibility he refused to contemplate. “We’ll meet,” he said. “What about the cages? Think you can find your way back there?

  “Oh, yeah.” There was a curious purposefulness in her voice. And no fear at all, just a breathless excitement. “Okay then. You distract the guard. I’ll light the fire.”

  “You sure you know how?”

  “Hey-” she said, bristling, “I’ll have you know-”

  “Oh, wait-let me guess.” Goody Two-Shoes-he should have known. “You were a Girl Scout, right?”

  “Well, no, 4-H, actually, but-”

  “I thought 4-H was more about raising cows than building campfires.”

  “Well, what, then?” She had her hands on her hips, and reminded him more than anything just then of a riled-up hen. “You want me to go chat up the guard?”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right. Are you sure you can reach it, though?”

  “I can if I climb up on those carved thingies. Just try to keep the guard from looking this way while I’m doing it.”

  “Right,” said McCall.

  “Okay, then…ready?”

  “Give me a minute. I’m thinking-okay, got it.” He caught her by the arms, and before she had time to think about it or prepare herself, his mouth swooped down and caught hers in a swift, hard kiss. And then he left her.

  A strange-under the circumstances-little shiver of joy rippled through her, followed by an equally strange sense of calm. She waited, like a veteran runner in the starting blocks-primed, prepared, but without nervousness-and watched McCall stroll to the edge of the lanai, close to where the guard was lounging, bored and smoking a cigarette. He got up, of course, when he saw McCall, and came unhurriedly to meet him, his rifle held at an angle across his chest.

  McCall spoke to the guard-evidently something reassuring-and made a jerking motion toward Ellie with his head. The guard laughed and said something to McCall, then made an exaggerated point of turning his back to Ellie. A moment later she heard the tiny but unmistakable screech of a zipper.

  Reigning in an impulse to giggle, she picked up her “cue” and stepped into the shadows between the back of the lanai and the Mayan wall, supposedly to answer her own “call of nature.” With McCall’s cigarette lighter clutched tightly in her hand, she felt for hand-and footholds that would lift her high enough to reach the palm-thatched roof of the shelter, at the same time keeping one ear tuned to what was happening with McCall and the guard. What she could hear above the noise of the wind sounded friendly and relaxed enough, punctuated by soft, snickering laughter; masculine camaraderie sounded about the same in any language. The wind shook the lanai and rustled in the palm thatch, masking perfectly any sounds she might have made as she climbed.

  There-she was in position. By holding on to the vines with one hand and stretching with the other, she could just reach the edges of the tinder-dry thatch. The time was now. But…what would happen when she clicked the lighter? What if the guard heard it, and caught on to their plan before the roof had a chance to ignite?

  Then, as if he’d heard her thoughts, she heard McCall asking in a raised voice for a cigarette and a light.

  Braced and balanced with the lighter at the ready, she waited in suspenseful agony, praying she’d be able to hear the sound of a match or lighter above the thumping of her heart, eyes straining against the darkness for the telltale flicker. There. Now. In perfect sync with McCall, she clicked the lighter and held her breath as a tiny flame blossomed…nibbled tentatively at a feather of palm thatch…and encouraged by the wind, grew larger. And hungrier. She touched the flame to another spot…and another…

  Enough, Ellie! In order for this crazy idea to work, she had to get into her hiding place now, quickly, before the guard noticed the flames. Half jumping, half sliding, she made her way down the ancient broken tumble of wall. The flames were making quite a bit of noise now-surely any minute the guard would hear it…

  No. Not the flames. Not the wind, either. Rain!

  Just as she felt solid ground under her feet again, the sky opened up. Rain came in sheets, driven almost horizontally by the wind. Instantly drenched, Ellie was already groping and clawing her way into the thicket of vines that curtained the snarling mouth of the stone Mayan beast. Crouched there, she watched in despair while the rain drowned her infant flames-and her hope with them.

  Chapter 11

  So much for Providence.

  Her heart felt so heavy she doubted whether her body could even carry it. Might as well just crawl into the mouth of the beast and die there, she thought. And with any luck, a poisonous snake or scorpion would kill her before General Reyes did.

  But then, what would happen to McCall? She couldn’t let him die because of her. She had to think of something, do something to convince the general-

  It was then that she heard the shouts. Then gunshots.

  And in that instant Ellie knew that Providence hadn’t deserted her after all. She’d just had her own ideas.

  The lanai was leaning ominously, its thatched roof disintegrating, blowing away branch by branch in the wind. Through billowing curtains of rain Ellie could catch glimpses of the guard as he scrambled up the ruined wall, his rifle slung now across his back. There was no sign whatsoever of McCall.

  Clawing her way back through the jungle growth, she ducked under the leaning, creaking remains of the shelter, groped for and found her sun visor-couldn’t leave without that!-and jammed it any-which-way on
to her head. Then she took off running, bare feet splashing through infant lakes and rivers, barely able to see or breathe through the clinging curtains of rain.

  McCall had known the second the skies opened up that that was the end of Ellie’s plan-plan A. As he was kicking the guard’s legs out from under him he was confident, hopeful-praying-that his crazy Cinnamon Girl, as quick a thinker as she was, would have no trouble at all slipping along with him into plan B.

  He heard the gunshots as he was hauling himself up the last few feet of wall. It was a very strange feeling, being shot at for the first time in his life. Almost surreal. Almost as if part of his mind had shut down-the part, anyway, that knew fear, or had any real awareness that he might actually be hit. That he might die.

  He felt utterly detached as he listened to the strange sounds…whines and zings and thunks…and then felt the sting of something hitting his arm. Just a tiny sting-a bit of rock or gravel thrown up by a bullet, he thought. No problemo.

  Then he was on top of the wall…scrambling, falling, tumbling down the other side. And running, pounding through the rain as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels, not looking back, not looking anywhere, focusing only on his destination-the dark and wind-whipped jungle. No matter how sinister it looked, he knew instinctively that the jungle meant safety-at least for a moment.

  Behind him he could hear the guard scraping and scrambling over the wall, yelling at McCall to stop or be shot. And a great exhilaration exploded through him, lifting him on a new wave of adrenaline into the sheltering trees. Yes. The guard had followed him. That meant Ellie would have her chance to escape.

  Now, all he had to do was lose the guard and get to the designated meeting place. The cages-crude wooden structures built to temporarily house the hundreds of birds and animals now awaiting shipment-were off to the right, he was sure of that. Somewhere just beyond the giant Olmec heads, he remembered, he should come to a raised causeway leading off into the jungle to the left. Flanked by remnants of ruined columns, it had probably once been a magnificant promenade ending in an open court at the base of a smallish pyramid that was now no more than a steep-sided mound rising out of the jungle floor. The cages had been assembled in that courtyard, under a canopy of palm thatch and camouflage netting. He’d figured it should be easy enough to find, even in the twilight and pouring rain, which was why he’d suggested it-that, and he’d known it had made a big impression on Ellie, so she’d be unlikely to forget it, either.