A flush rose to her cheeks. "You think you know everything about me, don't you? Has it ever occurred to you that you might have jumped to some conclusions that day we met?"
"Maybe." He started the car and pulled on to the road. "Of course, I might ask you the same question."
"I didn't jump to any con..." She broke off as he looked at her. "All right, perhaps I did. I thought you were...at first, I assumed you were trying to..."
Blake laughed. "Yeah, I know what you thought. I'm just surprised you didn't trot out your fiancé and dangle him in front of me right then and there."
"My fiancé?"
"Yeah, your fiancé." He grinned at her. "Don't tell me he's that forgettable, Princess."
Her fiancé, she thought. Jeremy... Dear God, she'd almost forgotten the story she'd told Blake only hours before.
"No," she said quickly, "of course not. I...I just forgot I'd mentioned him to you, that's all."
"You did more than mention him, Elena. You held him out like a talisman for protection."
"Don't be silly. I did no such thing. I simply told you that..."
"You told me he'd be very upset if I put a move on you." He glanced at the mortified expression on her face and laughed softly. "Oh yes, Princess, I know what was going through your pretty head. You thought I was going to demand my conjugal rights."
Elena felt a blush rise upwards from the very tips of her toes. "That's ridiculous."
Blake sighed as he shifted his long legs. "And you thought telling me about old Jeremy would turn me off." He looked at her again and a lazy grin spread over his face. "Don't try and deny it."
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," she said turning away from him.
"That's as good as an admission, Princess."
"Would you stop calling me that?”
"Princess? Hell, it suits you."
"Why? Because you think I'm a spoiled little rich girl who's used to getting her own way?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't say that," he said mildly.
"But it's what you think, isn't it?"
He shrugged again. "You're Elena Esteban," he said slowly. "Your father is a government official in San Felipe. That means you've grown up like a princess in a fairy-tale kingdom, getting what you wanted whenever you wanted it, pampered by Daddy and everybody else." He glanced at her and then looked back at the road. "How's that for a thumbnail sketch?"
"Wrong," she said stiffly.
He smiled. "What part's wrong, Princess? The name? I know there's probably a whole bunch of Marias and Teresas and Lucindas in there, but..."
She opened her mouth and turned towards him, ready to point out that while his assessment of her was wrong, it was also none of his business. But there was a strange look in his blue eyes, a questioning intensity that made her suddenly want to correct his impression of her. All the angry words that had been on the tip of her tongue melted into silence.
"The only part you got right was the name," she said finally. "Well, the Teresa, anyway. As for the rest..." Elena sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. "My father wasn't always an official. He was an archaeologist. He spent most of his time in the Yucatan Peninsula, digging at Mayan ruins."
"But you didn't. I mean, I have a hard time picturing you poking through piles of dirt and old bones."
She smiled and shook her head. "No, I stayed at home, on the ranch."
"With Mama."
"With Pilar. And Ysabel. And Margarita. And..." She glanced at Blake's puzzled face and she began to laugh. "I stayed at home with an endless succession of housekeepers. My mother was a painter, Blake. She specialized in wildlife studies, so she went with my father. They were very much in love. I don't think they ever spent a day apart from each other."
Blake's eyebrows rose. "Your parents spent their time tramping through the jungle while you stayed home alone in that big house?"
"I wasn't alone," she said quickly. "I told you, there were housekeepers."
"Right. Ysabel and Pilar—and Sleepy, Sneezy and Doc. But you were just a kid."
"They were all very kind. But they didn't spoil me, believe me. Pilar thought senoritas should be seen and not heard. Margarita thought I should learn to remember the less fortunate among us by fasting once a week. And Ysabel, who was very devoted to my mother, convinced her that it would only make it more difficult for me if my parents came home for visits more than twice a year. So..."
"Twice a year? That's all you saw them?"
Elena shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sure they loved me," she said. "But they..."
Her words trailed off and Blake cleared his throat. "And then Daddy became a government official and life improved."
"And then the coalition government convinced my father to accept a post, and he and my mother came home, yes." She smiled at the memory. "It was wonderful. I'd never been so happy."
Her voice grew wistful and Blake looked at her. "Then they spoiled you," he said in a gently teasing tone.
"They spoiled me to death for six months. And then Mama talked my father into taking us on a trip into the mountains..."
"The ones we're heading for?"
"No," she said, shaking her head, "not those. She wanted to do some sketches of a rare bird that nests in the crater of an extinct volcano. Papa didn't want to go, but she talked him into it. So we bought supplies..."
"Which is why you know what we'll need for the Mountains of the Moon?"
She nodded. "Yes. The terrain's very much the same." Her voice lapsed into silence and Blake glanced at her.
"And? Did you go to this volcano?"
Elena nodded again. "Yes," she said, and she took a deep breath. "We went. And... and my mother had an accident. Not while we were at the volcano; it was the day we were heading home. We were crossing the street outside the hotel—we'd stayed there the last night because our plane was leaving early the next morning—and there was a car. It was no one's fault. It just..."
Her words drifted away. Blake glanced at her and then his hand closed over hers.
"Hell," he said roughly, "I'm sorry, Elena. I'd never have brought it up if I'd known."
She made a quick little gesture with her shoulders. "I... I don't even know why I told you," she said softly. "I don't talk about it much."
"And that's when Daddy—when your father sent you off to boarding-school."
Elena nodded. "Yes. Between his official duties and his grief... It was the best thing, I suppose."
"And you've lived in the States ever since."
She nodded again. "Yes. In Miami. It was where I'd gone to school. And my mother's family is there..." She drew in a breath and blew it out. "This is the first time I've really been back in San Felipe in three years," she said, and she gave a quick, bitter laugh. "Three years, and I walked into this mess. Can you believe it?"
Blake squeezed her hand. "You're asking the wrong person, Princess," he said, flashing her a quick smile. "I'm the guy who'd always wanted to visit Mauna Loa."
Elena looked at him. "The volcano in Hawaii?"
"And finally I did—the day it erupted."
She sat up straight and eyed him warily, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "You're making that up."
He grinned and shook his head. "I wish I was. So you see, you're not the only one who has lousy timing."
They both laughed, and then Elena shifted sideways in the seat and looked at him.
"I'll bet you've been in a lot of interesting places."
"Well, I've been in a lot of places, that's for sure." He turned towards her and smiled. "Some of them aren't as great as they're supposed to be."
"But you like to keep moving," she said.
Blake shrugged. "I've never lived any other way."
There was a strange tightness in her throat. "Haven't you... haven't you ever thought about trying it?"
"Settling down in one place, you mean?" He chuckled softly. "There's a whole world out there, Princess, and I've only seen part of it. W
hy would a man turn down a chance to see it all?"
Elena nodded. It was all too easy for her to picture him drifting from country to country, from town to town, never staying in one place long enough to call it home. That was the kind of man he was; she'd known it from the start. But the image brought with it a curious sense of sadness—which was stupid, she told herself, watching Blake's profile as he concentrated on the road ahead. After all, the way he lived his life was none of her business.
The car rounded a curve and suddenly there was a dusty clearing ahead. A handful of straggly palm trees pointed towards the sky.
"We're here," she said. "Las Palmas."
Blake nodded. "A metropolis," he said, easing his foot from the accelerator pedal. "Just look at all those people."
She chuckled. "Yes, it's booming." The only visible citizens of Las Palmas were two old men, seated on a bench outside what seemed to be the only store. "Still, that's a good sign, isn't it? If there were soldiers or rebels around, those two wouldn't be sitting there."
"Well, we don't have much choice anyway. We're damned near running on empty. And my guess was right: there's a gas pump." Blake pulled up beside it and shut off the engine. "Here," he said, pulling some bills from his pocket, "you go on into the shop and buy us some supplies."
"I have some money."
His blue eyes met hers. "You're my wife, remember?" He gave her a teasing grin as he put the bills into her hand and folded her fingers over them. "What's mine is yours, Princess. Now, go on, see what there is to get us."
Not much, she thought, staring around her at the almost barren shelves of the little store. The place looked as if it had been ransacked. She peered into every corner and searched every shelf, but all she could come up with were two tins of anchovies, three tins of something she couldn't identify because the labels, were missing, a couple of dusty bottles of San Miguel beer, and a leaking box of rice.
She turned to the shopkeeper, who had trailed along after her with a nervous smile on his face.
"Are these the only foodstuffs you have for sale, senor?" she asked in the soft, up-country Spanish of the area.
He nodded. "I'm afraid so, senorita," he said, wiping his hands on his dingy apron. "There was more this morning, but..." He shrugged and held out his hands in apology.
Her pulse quickened. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said pleasantly.
The shopkeeper made a mumbled reply about people who had bought out his stock because of fighting in the city.
"I am sorry, senorita."
She looked at his downcast face and nodded. "I see. Well, then, I'll just take these things," she said, dumping the armful of items on the counter and counting out enough quetzals to pay for them. Her gaze fell on two ancient cans of insect repellent, and she added them to her purchases.
By the time she got outside, Blake had finished filling the tank. "That's it?" he asked as she put her sack of groceries into the back seat.
Elena climbed into the car beside him and slammed the door. "I'm afraid so." The car sprang forward as she told him what the shopkeeper had said.
"Yeah, it figures. That's the first sign that things are falling apart. I'll feel better when we're off this road."
She let out a gusty sigh. "Well, if the map's right, the turn-off is just ahead."
"The sooner the better." Blake glanced over his shoulder at the paper sack lying on the back seat. "At least you got us some supplies."
"Not very many. And none of the important stuff—no quinine, no aspirin, no machete…"
He grinned and reached beneath the seat. "Scratch the machete off your list, Princess," he said, brandishing one.
"Wow!” Gingerly, she took the big, broad-bladed knife by its wooden handle and stared at it. "Where did that come from?"
"Modesty prevents me from telling you that I liberated it from the uninteresting life it was leading, propped against the gas pump."
"Then don't," she said, laughing as she lay the machete on the floor beneath her feet.
"I offered to buy it, but those two old codgers who were baking themselves in the sun refused to talk to me. As for quinine and aspirin, I have some in my luggage."
Elena looked at him in surprise. "Luggage?"
He nodded. "Luggage. We were supposed to be on a plane this morning, remember?"
The smile fell from her lips. "Yes," she murmured, "I remember."
Blake glanced at her. "We'll be OK, Princess." She said nothing and he reached for her hand. "You're just worn out," he said softly. "Put your head back and get some sleep."
"I’m fine," she said, but after a while, she did as he'd suggested…
And awoke to the squeal of brakes.
"What is it? Why have we stopped."
"There's a roadblock ahead," he said. "See it?"
The road dipped ahead of them, a serpentine series of curves gleaming in the afternoon sun. Elena sat up straight and stared out of the windscreen, trying to see whatever Blake had seen. Finally, she shook her head.
"No, I don't."
"Look," he said, touching his hand to her cheek. "Turn your head. That's it. Look down there."
"I still don't see..." The breath caught in her throat. Far below them, a pair of army trucks angled across the road. As she watched, men in camouflage suits jumped from the backs. Sunlight glinted on the weapons cradled in their arms. "Oh my God," she said in a shaky whisper. "What do we do?"
But he was already moving, shifting into reverse and slamming the car into a squealing turn. "We go back," he said grimly.
"Back? Back where?"
"We passed a turn-off while you were sleeping," he said, stepping down hard on the accelerator. "Five or six miles behind us."
"The one we were looking for? Why didn't you..."
"No, not the one on the map. This was just a dirt track. A wagon trail, probably." Blake glanced into the rear-view mirror. "It was just an excuse for a road—but we haven't got much choice."
Elena's eyes followed his. "Is there anyone following us? Did they see us?"
He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. But I'll feel a hell of a lot better when we get off this road. There's the turn-off. I think you'd better brace yourself for a rough ride, Princess," he said as he swung the wheel hard to the right. The car bounced on to a narrow, packed-dirt trail. "I just wish to hell we had four-wheel drive."
Heavy foliage closed around them. The narrow road cut through the trees and tall grass like a thin brown ribbon, and the car groaned in protest as Blake urged it forward.
Elena's teeth clattered together as they hit a deep rut. "You were right," she said, raising her voice so she could be heard over the clank and squeal of metal. "It's not much of a road, is it?"
"No, but it's all we've got. Just call out if you see us aimed at something."
Tall trees crowded in from each side, and thick vines brushed against the windscreen. The light became greyer as the heavy growth blocked out most of the sunshine. It was hard to believe they were only a few hundred yards off the road, Elena thought, glancing over her shoulder at the seemingly impenetrable jungle behind them. She felt as if they had entered another world, one composed of heat, humidity, and the shrieking cries of unseen birds.
"Nobody's following us," she said with a sigh of relief.
"Good. All we've got to worry about now is whether or not the car can take much more of this."
The answer came quickly. The engine began to labor loudly as the car bucked like an unbroken horse across the ruts and grooves in the dirt. Elena braced her feet against the floor and her hands against the dashboard as the engine wheezed, gave a last gasping cough, and then spluttered into silence.
"Goddammit!" Blake slammed his hand against the steering wheel. "Come on, baby," he muttered. "Don't give up now." Elena held her breath as he turned the key and stepped on the accelerator. The engine cranked and caught, only to die seconds later. He sighed and threw open his door. "Maybe something was jarred loose."
"
You mean maybe something wasn't," Elena said, trying to take the edge off the situation. But Blake's face was grim as he opened the hood and peered into the engine.
"Nothing I can see," he said finally.
There was a moment's silence, and then he slammed his fist against the fender and uttered a string of curses . She opened the door slowly and stepped outside. The heat of the jungle made the breath catch in her throat.
"Have we broken something?" she asked carefully.
He sighed and shook his head. "It's my fault, Princess."
The distress on his face made her heart go out to him. "This road would kill any car, Blake. Didn't you just say you needed four-wheel drive..."
"Believe it or not, the road's not what did us in. It's probably the gas I put into this thing."
"I don't understand."
He walked to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. "I was so damned glad to get my hands on some fuel that I never thought to check on what was coming out of that pump." He pulled out a small, soft-sided valise, zipped it open, and dumped out the contents. "Garbage," he said as he stuffed handfuls of things back into it, "that's what it was. The gas was contaminated with water and God knows what, and I probably sucked the bottom of the tank dry. How could I have been so stupid?" He shook his head and tossed the soft case at her. "Here, put the stuff you bought into this. Just give me a minute or two..."
“Don't blame yourself for what happened. We'd have broken down anyway. You said yourself we were running on empty. So if you hadn't filled the tank, we'd have come to a halt before now."
He lifted his head and stared at her, and then his teeth flashed in a quick grin.
"Now, why didn't I remember that, Princess?"
Her smile matched his. "Modesty forbids me telling you that you would have, eventually," she said.
Blake's eyes glinted with laughter. "All right, woman. When your life depends on me thinking kindly of you, I'll remember that act of decency. Now, go on and pack that case. We have a lot of walking ahead of us."
She leaned against the car and peered into the soft bag he'd tossed to her. "The man's a walking supermarket," she murmured. "What did you put in here, Blake?" she called. "Quinine—aspirin—bandages—antiseptic..." A hint of laughter wove into her voice. "I don't suppose you have a couple of blankets stashed away, do you? We're liable to need them..."
Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set Page 55