“Yeah, but it’s a pretty cool view.”
Laura counted to ten under her breath.
“I am seriously beginning to wonder why I came to see you,” she told him.
He folded his arms over his blue t-shirt. His face had a few days of stubble on it and from the look of the dark circles under his eyes he’d been getting about as much sleep as she’d been getting.
“Let’s talk about that,” he said. “Why did you come see me? I thought I was a bad influence on you. That I made you do crazy things. That you lost control around me.”
Her eyes widened as the crowd was quiet. No one wanted to miss a word.
“Seriously?” she said. “You want to do this here with everyone listening?”
He looked behind him and shrugged.
“I thought you wanted sensible, boring and safe,” he continued.
Laura scowled down at him.
“Let me down and we’ll talk.”
“You’re kidding right. I like having the advantage. You might decide you don’t like the conversation and run away again.”
“Let. Me. Down.”
He waved her words away.
“So why are you here, Laura? Do you need another interview?”
“I didn’t need the first one Neanderthal.”
Something shifted within him.
“What?”
“Don’t you talk to your sister?”
“Not recently, no.”
Laura huffed towards the sky.
“I didn’t hand in the interview. I quit my job.”
Something began to rumble through Charlie’s body. He looked up at her.
“You what?”
She flapped her arms in exasperation.
“Quit the job. Left the country. Came to find you,” she looked at him pointedly. “Took a chance. And I have to tell you Charlie; right now I’m pretty much regretting it.”
Charlie spun away from Laura to rub a hand over his face; he was surprised to find that his palms were sweaty. The crowd grinned at him. He suddenly felt more than a little confused. He looked back at Laura. This wasn’t making any sense. But one thing he knew. He was glad she was there.
“So, I’ll ask again,” he said, his stomach clenched; he thought he knew the answer. “Why are you here?”
Laura took a deep breath. Looked him straight in the eye and told him the truth, as he knew she would. That was the thing about Laura, she had courage. She would always tell you honestly what she wanted. He thought he saw her lips tremble before she spoke.
“I’m here because I love you.”
The crowd gasped. Charlie felt sick.
“I am in love with you, Charlie Lewis,” she said.
Charlie felt light headed and bent over to restore the flow of blood.
“Great,” Laura said. “Someone get the idiot a glass of water. I think he’s going to vomit.”
Charlie wasn’t proud. He was sitting in the dirt hyperventilating looking up at the woman who said she loved him. And she wasn’t happy. If looks could kill he would be squashed like a bug.
“Love?” he said.
“Man up,” Big Mike told him. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
No kidding. Now if only the world would stop moving so he could stand again.
“Typical,” Laura said. “You tell me to let loose and live a little, so I pack up and come to visit you and this is how it goes. I can take rejection. I can even take making a fool of myself in front of a crowd. What I can’t take is staying where I’m not wanted. Let me down Big Mike. I’m going home.”
“Wait a minute,” Charlie told her. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you. I just need a minute to think.”
“Mike,” she demanded. “Let me down and take me back to the air strip.”
Mike toed him with his massive flip flop covered foot.
“What do you want me to do?”
Charlie didn’t know. His head was spinning. Love? Heck, he’d only come to terms with liking the woman. Love?
“What did you think would happen when you came here?” he asked her.
“I didn’t think. That’s what you do to me. You make me nuts. One tiny affair and I threw away the life I worked hard for and jumped on a plane into the jungle. I keep trying to tell you this. You make me nuts.”
“Charlie?” Big Mike nudged him again. “Do you want me to take her to the airport?”
No. He didn’t, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. He wasn’t ready for love. For commitment. For security in suburbia. And then something occurred to him. He wasn’t in suburbia. Laura wasn’t asking him to give up his life to be with her. No. She had done that for him.
He stood up to tell her that he wanted her to stay. He planned to say that they could have some fun together and see where it led. When he opened his mouth to speak he looked up at the Iron Maiden. That’s when he saw it. One tiny tear running silently down her pale pink cheek.
For a moment everything stopped.
And then, when it started again, it was different. The panic he had felt earlier was gone. The fear had evaporated. He knew, without a doubt, that for this woman he would do anything. He would give Laura Prentice anything she wanted, no questions asked.
“No,” he told Mike, “you can’t take her to the airport and you can’t unhook her. I need her exactly where she is.”
“Charlie?” There was a pleading element to her voice. He knew instinctively that it was taking all her energy to keep it together.
“So what do you want to do with her?” Mike asked, clearly exasperated.
“I’m going to marry her,” Charlie said.
And the crowd went wild.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Laura demanded.
Her armpits were beginning to hurt where her t-shirt bunched up and held her captive against the fence. She was hot. She was hungry. She was tired. And now, apparently, she had to deal with mass insanity. As she watched, people rushed forward to pump Charlie’s hand and congratulate him. It didn’t seem to bother anyone that his so called fiancé was hanging from a fence.
“Big Mike,” Laura hissed at the giant. “I take it back. When you’re surrounded by this lot you look positively sane. So please, unhook me and get me out of here.”
His mouth twitched and she thought the man may actually smile for a minute.
“He can’t do that,” Charlie called to her over the crowd, “we’re getting married. I sent for the local minister.”
Breathe, Laura told herself, breathe.
“Charlie, I need to talk to you now,” she took a deep breath and screamed, “alone!”
That got everyone’s attention.
“People,” said some French guy, “why don’t we give the happy couple a little space?”
She was grateful when he managed to herd them into the building. Charlie smiled up at her; he seemed really quite pleased with himself. Laura counted to ten and tried to calm her breathing so that she sounded sane when she spoke.
“Charlie, I don’t want to marry you.”
“Rubbish. Of course you do.”
She wanted to kick the fence behind her as hard as she could. Instead she used the same voice she would use to take a pair of scissors away from a toddler.
“No, I don’t,” she said. “I want to go home. I want to be back in London, alone, forever.”
Charlie sauntered towards her. He ran his hand up her calf, she kicked him away.
“I can’t sleep without you,” he said.
And just like that, a brick fell out of the wall she had built.
“I think about you all the time.”
Another brick toppled from her defence.
“I was so worried about you that I planned to come find you in London as soon as my six weeks here were up.”
Crash went the top of the wall. His beautiful eyes looked up into hers.
“You need to marry me.”
There was a hole in her wall so big now that a tank could have driven thro
ugh it.
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because you love me.”
“I can get over that,” she told him.
He nuzzled the bare skin of her belly making her blood pump faster.
“Well how about because I love you?”
What was left of her wall began to sway.
“Do you?”
He looked her in the eye.
“Yes, I do.”
The wall crashed down around her. She was defenceless against him.
“How do you know for sure? A minute ago you almost fainted when I said it.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“I didn’t almost faint.”
“Whatever. How do you know for sure?”
He settled his hands on her waist as he looked up into her eyes.
“You scare the life out of me,” he said at last. “You make me a better man, even though most of the time I don’t want to be one. You take away my nightmares. You give me something to worry about and think about besides myself. I thought I wanted to fix your life, but I was trying to fix mine. I need you with me. And if getting married will make that happen then that’s okay with me. Anything you want is okay with me. Because all I want is you.”
A tear slid down her face as she stared into the core of him.
“Do you believe me?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.
Laura nodded.
“Great,” he grinned, “so we’re getting married?”
“It seems a rush, why hurry things, why not hang out for a while first? I mean we need to think things through. It would be rash to rush into this. Weddings need planning.”
Her mind ran so fast her words couldn’t keep up with it.
Charlie kissed her belly.
“That’s exactly why we need to do it now. We wait any longer and your planning and control issues might screw the whole thing up. Nope, we do this now.”
“Or what?” He couldn’t make her marry him.
“There is no or what. We’re getting married now, whether you like it or not.”
“You can’t make me get married.”
“You haven’t met the local vicar yet.”
With that he wandered off.
“Where are you going?” Laura demanded. “You can’t leave me here.”
Five minutes later she had Big Mike for company. They glared at each other.
“I’m so going to kill you when I get down,” she told him.
“Bring it on, tiny sister.”
They waited in silence. At last Mike looked at her.
“Do you really want to marry the Doc?” he said. “Because if you don’t, if this isn’t for real, I’ll let you go.”
Laura looked out towards the rain forest and blinked. Never in her life had she imagined this scenario.
“Crazy lady?” Big Mike said.
“Yeah,” Laura sighed heavily. “I do want to marry the idiot.”
“Well all right, we have a party.”
Yeah, Laura thought wryly, one where the bride is immobilised and gets married wearing shorts and a t-shirt which is up around her neck.
Super-duper.
It didn’t take long to spot that the vicar was a lush. By the looks of him he’d been drinking for days. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants and a pair of blue deck shoes. Apart from the beard and something that looked like bird poop stuck in his hair, he looked like he was in the middle of a beach party.
“Do you, English doctor take the flying lady to be your husband?” he said between hiccups.
The French guy mumbled in his ear.
“I mean wife.”
“I do,” said Charlie loudly, setting off another round of cheering.
Laura actually felt a warmth buzz through her body at the words. He did. Charlie blew her a kiss.
“Do you lady on a fence; take the doc to be your awful wedded husband.”
“You’re kidding?” Laura asked Charlie. “This is how you want to do it. With a drunken preacher and your fiancé stuck to a fence?”
“Answer the man Laura, the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll have your feet on the ground.”
She pursed her lips. This was insane.
“Come on honey.” Charlie grinned, he was loving every minute. “You know you want to. I’ll make it up to you later. I promise.”
“How?” Her eyes narrowed.
He shrugged.
“I’ll do anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Cross my heart. Now answer the man before he falls into a coma.”
She stared at Charlie. Looked at the group of strangers. She was a million miles away from her life and had turned into someone she didn’t even recognise.
“I do, I do, I do, I do,” started a chant in the crowd.
As it got louder Laura found herself struggling not to laugh.
“Fine,” she shouted at last. “I’ll marry the Neanderthal.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said the vicar. “Consider yourself hitched.”
The crowd cheered as they threw brightly coloured petals at her.
“Can I please get down now?” she pleaded to anyone who would listen.
Apart from anything else she had been hanging around for hours and really needed to visit the toilet.
“Big Mike,” Charlie shouted above the crowd. “Please put my wife on the ground.”
Big Mike reached up, grabbed her under the arms and unhooked her. As soon as she was on the ground she kicked him as hard as she could in the shin. It barely registered with him.
“That’s for starters,” she promised.
Charlie stepped towards her, his arms open wide.
“Wife, you may kiss your husband.”
Laura punched Charlie in the stomach making him double over. The crowd were silent, jaws hanging open.
“That’s how we celebrate in England,” she told them. “Now the drinks are on Charlie.”
There was a whoop as they all ran in the direction of town and the only place within miles that sold anything to drink.
“That was a bit low,” Charlie said when he stood up.
“You made me really angry,” she told him.
“I also made you my wife.”
He took a step towards her with the goofiest grin on his face.
“Only until I find out how legal this whole thing is,” she said.
“Okay, then we better not waste a minute of married life.”
In a flash she was in his arms.
“I do love you, Mrs Lewis,” he said before he kissed her.
His touch made a milkshake of her insides.
“I love you too,” she told him when she came up for air. “Although I’m seriously disappointed in myself because of it.”
“I can live with that,” Charlie told her as he dragged her off in the direction of his bunk house.
Laura’s smile was so wide it made her cheeks ache. She hoped it would never stop.
Epilogue
“Do you have any idea where my wife is?”
Charlie paced the tiny office that belonged to the medical centre manager. Jacques was out of town and his assistant wasn’t being helpful.
“She said there was a group of children in the hills that she needed to interview.”
Charlie gritted his teeth. A habit he’d picked up from Laura.
“And when will she be back?”
The woman shrugged.
“When the plane gets back.”
With a disgusted ha, he picked up the car capsule with his daughter strapped in it and stomped out of the office. Typical. She would wait until he was holding the baby, literally, before she went running off after a story.
He could hear the noisy engines of the small plane in the distance. It was time to settle this once and for all. He strapped the baby into the jeep and gunned down the dirt road towards the air field. The jungle humidity was getting to him today and he hoped the rainy season would arrive soon. He checked the sky but there was
no sign of a single cloud. He could however see the plane.
He arrived at the air strip just as the plane landed. Laura waved enthusiastically as she climbed out of the tiny aircraft and Charlie tried not to let his sense of relief at seeing her ruin the fact he was mad.
“Honey.” She trotted over to him, went up on tiptoes and planted a full kiss on his lips.
So he kissed her back. Men can compartmentalise when they’re mad. Laura skipped round to the baby.
“Ruby darling,” she cooed and cuddled their daughter.
His heart softened at the way her face glowed when she was around their baby. She glanced his way out of the corner of her eye. He was being played. Again. He folded his arms across his chest and stood up tall. At least she could never win on the height thing.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to go into the jungle alone anymore. Especially not to chase stories.”
She tried to look apologetic, but she couldn’t quite pull it off.
“And you.” Charlie turned on Big Mike. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to enable her anymore?”
Big Mike held up his hands in surrender.
“She threatened me,” he said.
Charlie rolled his eyes; the two of them were as bad as each other. He was beginning to think he was the only sensible person in Bolivia. Ever since she’d wrangled a spot reporting for the BBC, he hadn’t been able to stop her chasing anything. The first whiff of a story and she was gone. But things were different now. They had Ruby.
He watched as Laura cuddled Ruby to her chest and chatted to her. It made him want to puff out his chest and shout to the world that this was his family. His woman.
“I won’t do it again,” Laura said when she noticed him watching. “Honest. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“She was safe with me,” said the man mountain, which was probably true. But still, they had a family to think about now. She couldn’t do every crazy thing that came into her head. They had responsibilities.
She walked around the car to lean against his chest; instinctively he put an arm around her. When had things changed so much, when had he become the responsible one?
“Seriously, Laura. It’s too dangerous.”
She looked up at him with those wide green eyes that always undid him.
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