by Jill Barnett
It took every bit of his willpower to keep from tormenting her longer. The expression on her face touched some small bit of humanity buried somewhere inside him. He took the canteen from her and unscrewed the cap.
Those ladylike manners of hers forgotten, she grabbed it and took a swig. She chewed briefly, then took a deep breath and swallowed. From the size of the wad, Sam was sure it must have hit her stomach like a mortar weight.
She gasped and took another gulp of water.
“Better eat up there, Lollipop. We need to go on.” Sam glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge how much time they had before nightfall. There wasn’t much. He’d been wrong about how long it would take them to get there. He’d overestimated her. She was even slower than he’d thought.
“I’ve had enough, thank you.” She handed him the meat and the canteen.
He returned the jerky to the pack and hooked the canteen back on his belt, then turned to give her a hand up. She’d turned around and now picked at her teeth with a fingernail.
“Let’s go.”
She sat as straight as bamboo, her hand whipping back into her lap. Her face flushed with a guilty look that said he’d caught her doing something wrong.
“I don’t mind if you pick your teeth.” He hauled her to her feet.
She dusted off her bottom with a few angry strokes. “I wasn’t picking my teeth.”
“Sure.”
“I need a toothbrush,” she said, as if that one implement could solve all her problems.
He grabbed her hand and started through the brush, moving faster than they had before. “I’ll make sure we stop at the next Marshall Field and buy you one, along with a silver tea set and some of those lah-dee-dah little cups.”
She mumbled that she couldn’t wait until they got to that bay and away from him.
“I feel exactly the same way,” he said over his shoulder, then walked twice as fast as before.
She stumbled. “Can’t you slow down?”
“No.” He dragged her through a clump of head-high palmilla trees.
She muttered something about obnoxious Yankees who didn’t behave like gentlemen.
He let go of the bent palm frond he’d been gallantly holding aside.
It whacked her right in the face. She gasped in outrage, but he ignored it, pulling her with him at a full military run.
The sun sat atop the glowing water in a blazing pink fireball, the brilliant colors of a Pacific sunset—golden orange, burning pink, cool lavender, and deep dark purple—staining into the immanence of a night-black sky. Around the pearlescent waters of the bay were white sand beaches and thick, vivid jungle backed by a jagged barricade of mountains bruised purple from the fast-setting sun.
Lollie sagged against a tree, trying to catch her breath and watching Sam pace the white sands. Her lungs burned so from running that she felt as if the hot sun were setting in her raspy throat. Sweat dripped down her face, mosquito bites made her arms itch as if she’d slept in poison oak, and her leg muscles ached like they were bruised. And her poor feet. They felt blistered and raw.
“Can you see the boat?” She sat down and raked her broken fingernails up one itchy arm.
He continued to pace, stopping once to kick at some sand. “It’s not here.”
“Are you sure?”
He stooped and glared at her, his face only inches away while he pointed toward the calm, empty bay. “Do you see a goddamn boat anywhere out there?”
Her hope dying, she looked down at the sand and mumbled, “I just thought maybe I couldn’t see it.”
“You can’t see it, Miss Lah-Roo, because it’s not there. We missed it.” He stormed an angry ten-foot path of frustration, talking to himself about what the hell he was going to do with her. From the angry tone of his voice and the purple color of his neck—a color that had nothing to do with the sunset—she could tell that he wouldn’t welcome her next question. She wanted to know what they would do next, but for the sake of her own well-being, she wouldn’t ask just now. It wasn’t the time. So she counted the bites on her arm instead.
He muttered something about being sitting ducks and said they might as well shoot themselves because they were as good as dead. She’d just reached bite number twenty-two when he stopped pacing suddenly, spun around, and took the rifle off his shoulder.
He lifted it up, and she faced the gun barrel. Her breath caught. He was gonna shoot her! He rammed some latch thing back with a deadly click.
She slammed her eyes shut. Her back went ramrod straight, the muscles in her small body as taut as dulcimer strings. She prayed a last prayer for a lifetime of forgiveness, and tried not to scream.
The gun went off; she waited for the bullet.
I didn’t feel anything. Oh, my Gawd, I must be dead!
The gun went off again. She sagged against the tree, but still felt nothing. She opened one eye, expecting to see Saint Peter standing at those pearly gates.
All she saw was Sam’s broad back. He faced the bay, the rifle aimed straight up, and he fired a third shot, then appeared to scan the horizon for a long moment. She exhaled.
“Damn!” He slammed the rifle butt into the sand and turned around. “We missed them. All that goddamn running and we bloody missed them.”
Lollie looked out at the bay, the empty bay, and everything hit her at once. Her father hadn’t waited. She didn’t mean enough to him for him to wait for her. Or maybe—the thought brought on a stab of pain so sharp she was almost ill—maybe he hadn’t come at all.
Her heart settled somewhere in her tight throat. She was alone. Worse than alone, she was with Sam.
Suddenly the tears welled into her eyes. Sobs poured up from deep within her, and she slid bonelessly down the tree trunk, landing on the cool sand in an aching heap. She cried and cried and cried, and though from somewhere far away she could hear Sam swearing, she couldn’t stop the sobs.
She was alone, her brothers so far away they probably didn’t even know what was happening to her. And her father didn’t care about her. All the fears she’d harbored but refused to believe surfaced.
Her father had never come home to his daughter because he didn’t care to. She cried, wishing fervently that she had been a boy instead of a girl. Then he’d have come home. Then she wouldn’t be here on this awful island, stuck with a man who didn’t want the burden of her any more than her father did, and that final, crushing thought was just too much for her.
“Stop it, Lollie! Stop it!” Sam strode toward her. He stood over her, watching her rock and wail. He didn’t want to slap her, although he was tempted.
He picked her up. She kicked and cried and squirmed, so he did the only thing he could.
He threw her in the bay.
Ignoring the splash, he turned and walked the few feet to shore and sat in the sand, waiting for her to come ashore wet but calmed down. She didn’t, but she was quieter. The wailing stopped, replaced with sputters and coughs. Her arms waved frantically above the water’s surface, and she sank like an anchor.
Christ! Sam shot up and waded out to where she’d sunk. The water barely reached his shoulders, but neither did she. He reached down and hauled her off the bottom, bending so he could sling her around his shoulders. Then he waded back to the beach. He laid her on the still warm sand and worked the water out of her. She coughed and hacked until she finally just lay there, breathing normally, but obviously drained completely.
He watched her as she lay there and wondered if this woman was the retribution for every wrong thing he’d done in his hard life. If so, the punishment, in his mind, was much worse than any of the crimes.
She turned over on her back and moaned, flinging an arm across her eyes and just lying there wheezing. Finally she spoke, her tone flat and her voice barely audible. “If you’re gonna kill me, just do it now.”
Oh, the melodrama. He shook his head, disgusted. “Get up. No one’s going to kill you, although you might get me killed if you keep this up.”
&nb
sp; She lifted her arm a few inches to look at him with red puffy eyes. “You just tried to drown me.”
“I doubt you’d drown in less than six feet of water.” Sam picked up the rifle and reloaded.
“I can’t swim!”
He dropped the cartridges in the sand and glared at her. “What in the hell do you mean you can’t swim? Everyone can swim.”
“Maybe every man can swim, but not me.” She sat up. “Where I come from, women don’t swim. I never learned, since my brothers didn’t consider it safe or proper for a refined lady.”
“I didn’t think this situation could get any worse,” he muttered, bending to pick up the shot. “I was wrong.”
“You still tried to drown me.” Her voice had a distinct whine to it, something he hadn’t noticed before. She had managed to sit up and turn her back to him again. Hugging her knees, she stared out into the dark bay.
“If I’d wanted to drown you, you can bet your sweet southern little butt I’d have been successful. And if you call me a damn Yankee under your breath one more time I just might do it.” He struggled into the pack while she still sat there, not moving.
“Get up, we have to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“Because of those shots I fired. Your daddy’s boat might not have heard them, but someone else might have, and I don’t want to stick around here to find out who.” He held out his hand to help her up.
She looked at it, then stuck her nose up and watched the bay.
“You want to go swimming again?”
Her head whipped around, her eyes wide, and their gazes locked. After a long tense moment, she looked at his hand still stretched out to her.
“Don’t tempt me,” he warned.
She took it and stood up, shaking the wet sand from her soaking dress.
It was the second time today she’d been soaked from head to foot. Which reminded him . . . “Tell me something, Miss Lah-Roo, why the hell did you jump off that boat if you couldn’t swim?”
She pulled the back of her skirt around so she could get at the rest of the sand. “I was aiming for that barrel.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Why’d you jump off the boat?”
“I was seasick,” she mumbled.
He thought about her answer for a moment, looking for its logic—a futile search. “So you chose to drown instead. Makes perfect sense.”
“I told you I was aiming for that barrel!”
“Let me see if I have this right.” He leaned on the rifle. “You get seasick.”
She nodded, her eyes averted.
“So instead of staying on that trawler with a little upset stomach, you decided to jump through the bullet-ridden air into the middle of the river—despite the fact that you can’t swim—hoping you could hang on to a barrel.”
“It wasn’t a little upset stomach, and at the time it made sense.”
He snorted.
She turned and looked at him. “It did! Sincerely.”
“You can be sincere and still be stupid.”
“Why don’t you just leave me here then!” She spun around, crossing her arms like a spoiled little child with the “poor me’s.”
“Want a cross and some nails?”
“I hate you!”
“Good. Funnel some of that energy into those pampered little feet of yours and let’s go.” Sam slung the rifle over his shoulder, turned, and began walking toward the northeast.
Before long he realized she wasn’t behind him. Not enough noise—no mumbling, humming, whining—and no sounds of her crashing face down into the nearest bush. He stopped and counted to ten, then twenty. By the time he’d reached a hundred and fifty, he figured he was calm enough to go back.
The spot where he’d left her was deserted—nothing but a depression in the sand. The beach was dark, the moon being only a thin silver sliver in the sky. He scanned the area where sand met jungle, and there he spotted her. She sat against a coconut palm, her knees hugged to her chest and her head resting on them. One small finger picked at her teeth.
He shook his head at the pitiable sight and wondered what the hell he was going to do with her.
She must have sensed his presence because she looked up at him. He walked over to her and stood above her, not saying a word.
“I want to go home,” she whined into her knees. He didn’t acknowledge her.
“I want to sleep in a bed. I want to eat real food. I want to take a bath. And most of all, I want to brush this stupid jerky meat out of my teeth!”
“Are you through?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam waited.
She sat up, her back pressed against the tree but her eyes locked on the bay. “Isn’t there any chance they’ll come back?-
“No.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
He laughed. “I wish I knew.”
“Can’t you take me home?”
“Forget it.”
“Please.”
“What do you think I am, some hero in a romance novel? I said forget it. It’s too dangerous, and there’s no time. I have to be back at my camp. I’ve got a job to do. Now get up.”
“I want to go home.”
“Get—”
“I want to take a bath.”
“Up.”
“I want to brush my teeth.”
“Now!”
Her back went ramrod straight. She turned her head away from him and dug her heels a little deeper into the sand.
“I said now!”
“No.”
He dropped the rifle, slid out of the pack, and grabbed her shoulders, then hauled her none too gently up against the tree. With his face barely an inch from her, he gritted, “Look, you spoiled little brat. One more whine about those teeth of yours and you won’t have any to brush. You will get up. You will walk. And you will keep quiet!”
Her chin shot up. “Not until you tell me where you’re taking me!”
“To Bonifacio’s camp!” he bellowed.
“Isn’t he another one of those guerrilla leaders?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you gonna do, sell me to him so he can hold me for ransom, too?”
Sam stared at her, still shaking his fist at her teary, belligerent face. Her words registered. And he’d called her stupid? He was a damn fool.
She’d just given him the solution to his problem. He had no choice but to take her with him anyway. He might as well let Bonifacio hold her for ransom. Andres needed the money as much as Aguinaldo did. There was no Colonel Luna in Andres’s camp. Sam and Jim Cassidy were serving as officers. They wouldn’t let anything happen to her. It was perfect.
He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it. Must be the heat, or that batty woman, because the Chicago street kid in him would never have missed this kind of opportunity. He guessed age affected everyone, and maybe he was getting too old for this.
Well, he’d worry about that after this job was done, until then he had a new plan—to see to her safety. After all, she was a defenseless woman and a fellow American, and now he could make a little money on the side. Bonifacio would give him a bonus—a cut of the ransom. It was perfect.
“What are you staring at?” She eyed him warily.
“Not a thing, Miss Lah-Roo, not a thing.” Sam smiled, releasing her shoulders. “Bonifacio and I will make sure you get back to your daddy all safe and sound. Now let’s go. The sooner you move the sooner you’ll be home.” And, Sam thought, whistling as he watched her wobble ahead of him, the sooner I’ll get that bonus.
Chapter 10
“Better eat up.”
Lollie stared at the horrid piece of jerky. It was all Sam had given her to eat for the past two days. She had more than her share of the salty, stringy meat permanently wedged between her teeth. She was hungry, but staring at the shriveled brown hunk convinced her she could never be hungry enough to eat one more bite of the awful stuff.
Leaning back ag
ainst a hard, cool rock, she watched Sam. He chewed, then looked at her, grinning as if this whole thing were just some party, all for him. It was almost as if he relished her misfortune. But no one could be that mean.
She watched him chug down some water before he handed the canteen to her. He eyed her with that one-eyed brown stare as if he were waiting to see what she’d do next. She wanted to ignore him, but she wasn’t stupid, no sirree. She knew her body needed water, especially since it wasn’t gonna get any food.
She took the canteen and wiped the spout with her petticoat before she took a small mouthful. She swished the water around in her mouth before swallowing.
“I said eat.”
“No.”
“Planning on starving yourself’?” He stood and took the canteen away, picked up the pack and slung it and his precious gun over his shoulder.
“That . . . that jerky sticks in my teeth.” She dropped the meat into her lap so she could scratch her arms again. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
She handed it to him. Just looking at him standing there, pack in place, rifle slung over his big shoulder, told her he was ready to walk again. The man never rested, hardly slept. He wasn’t human.
“I’m tired.”
He grunted something indistinguishable.
“I am tired,” she repeated with a sigh, looking out at the never-ending maze of green jungle. She felt if she had to walk through one more plant she’d just die.
Self-pity in full swing, she talked to the jungle, willing at this point to tell anyone or anything her plight. “I want to take a bath. I want to sleep in a bed, any bed, with real sheets. I want to eat real food and wear clean clothes.” She ran her tongue over her teeth frowning, and added, “And I want to br—”
She stopped in mid-word.
He glared at her, waiting for her finish. Silent, she returned his stare.
“And I want you to stop whining, but I doubt I’ll get that any more than you’ll get your toothbrush. Now let’s go.” He stood there waiting for her, then said, “When we get to the camp you can have a bath.”