When Emery finished talking, he leaned against the hut, obviously exhausted. Gwen put her arm around her father and hugged him.
“I believe him.” Gwen glared at the others.
“So do I,” Will said.
“Have you both lost your minds?” Jordan asked.
“There’s one way to find out,” Will told them. “I’m going to speak to Sebak. If what Dr. Arnell has told us is true, we need to get off this island as soon as possible. Today.”
“No!” The Professor cried, “I will not leave without a sample of the Eshe plant.”
“Then you stay here and risk your life,” Will told him. “The rest of us are leaving today. We’d be better off floating around in the Atlantic, hoping to be rescued, than waiting here on this island, knowing we were going to wind up as human sacrifices.”
“I agree with Will even though I wanted to find this island so desperately,” Jordan said. “But if Sebak backs up The Professor’s story, then we must leave the island today.”
Will looked at Gwen. “Talk to your father. Make him see reason. I’m going to find Sebak.”
Before the sun rose high overhead, Will returned and gathered everyone together, including Mick McGuire, inside his and Gwen’s hut. His gaze went around the room, studying each person for a brief moment.
“Dr. Arnell was telling the truth,” Will said. “Sebak thinks we will be safe here for a few days, possibly another week or two, but the longer we are on the island, the greater the odds that the high priests’ elite brigade will discover that we’re here. If there was only one of us, it would be easier for them to hide us. But there are six of us.”
“Then I say we leave the island as soon as possible.” Jordan glanced at Emery.
“Leaving here sounds good to me,” Mick said. “But just how do you propose we do that? Our cruiser was destroyed in the storm and you said your boat’s motors aren’t working.”
“Sebak told me that my boat will take us to safety. He explained that when the high priest lifts the cloaking spell from around Umi, that act creates freak storms and disrupts everything within a hundred miles around the island. It’s some sort of weird magnetic field. Sebak feels certain that the Footloose’s engines will work now. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s our only hope.”
“And you believe this crap?” Cheryl asked.
“I’m going to take the lifeboat that Gwen and I left on shore, row back to the Footloose and check the engines myself,” Will told them.
“Won’t that be dangerous?” Gwen looked at him with great concern.
“How do we know you won’t make it to the boat, find out the engines are working and go off and leave us?” Mick got right up in Will’s face.
Will tapped Mick in the chest, warning him to move back, which Mick did. “I’d like to leave your sorry ass here on Umi and let the high priest’s elite brigade take care of you, but there’s no way in hell I’d leave the others.” Will looked directly at Gwen. “I’d die before I’d leave you behind. You know that, don’t you?”
Gwen’s heart lurched, tightened by a combination of joy and sorrow. How did she tell him that she couldn’t leave her father, who would not leave Umi without a sample of the Eshe plant?
“I trust you,” Jordan told Will. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Just look after Gwen while I’m gone.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said.
“In our world, you probably can,” Will told her. “But not on Umi. I’ve told Sebak where I’m going and that I’m leaving my woman under Jordan’s protection. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand, and I’m sorry that I let my feminist instincts surface,” Gwen said. “You have enough to worry about right now. I promise that while you’re gone I’ll behave myself and not get in any trouble.”
“I won’t leave here without samples of the Eshe plant.” Dr. Arnell spoke up loud and clear, reiterating his intentions.
Gwen patted his hand. “Now is not the time to discuss this, Daddy. First, Will has to make sure the Footloose’s motors are working. Once he does that, we can make plans to leave.”
“As long as you understand—all of you—that I must have samples of the plant to take with me,” Dr. Arnell said.
Picking up his backpack, Will motioned to Gwen, who followed him outside the hut. He cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, then kissed her. “While I’m gone, don’t take any chances. And do your best to keep your father from going off half-cocked.”
He kissed her again, then strapped his knapsack to his back and headed toward the road that would take him through the jungle back to the beach. Gwen stood and watched him until he disappeared from sight.
Cheryl came up beside her. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. I’m most definitely in love with him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“About choosing between your father and the man you love. The Professor won’t leave this island without a sample of the Eshe plant, and Will Pierce won’t leave this island without you.”
Chapter 15
Will returned to Oseye before nightfall and gathered everyone together inside his hut, where Gwen was waiting with the others. During Will’s absence, she had tried again and again—unsuccessfully—to make her father see reason.
“I will not leave Umi without samples of the Eshe plant,” he had told her repeatedly.
No matter what tactic she took, no matter what she, Jordan or Cheryl said to him, he refused to change his mind. In the end, Gwen knew what she would do, what she had to do for her father.
When Will entered the hut at twilight, Gwen ran to him, relieved that he had made the journey and returned safely. If anything had happened to him…
He lifted her off her feet and hugged her fiercely, then set her in front of him and smiled. “Good news, brown eyes. I can’t explain it, but the motors on the Footloose are working just fine. The radio is still out, but with the cruiser operational and the instruments online, we can leave this place first thing in the morning.”
“Man, am I glad to hear that.” Cheryl hugged Jordan. “I am so ready to leave this damn place.”
“Why not get this show on the road and leave tonight?” Mick McGuire asked. “As soon as the old man gets his Eshe plants, I say we hightail it out of here before the goon squad finds out what’s happened.”
Will glowered at Mick. “We’re leaving at dawn tomorrow morning. It will be safer traveling through the jungle and entering the ocean waters after daylight. And we will be leaving Umi without any Eshe plants.”
“No way,” Mick said. “The old man’s going to get those plants. They’ll be worth millions, maybe billions. And he’s going to share equally with all of us. Isn’t that right, Professor?”
“Quite right,” Dr. Arnell said.
Will looked from person to person. “Trying to steal samples of that plant will be signing a death warrant for all of us.”
“This is something Mick cooked up between him and The Professor,” Jordan said. “Cheryl and I agree that we should leave as soon as possible, without the Eshe plant samples.”
Gwen took Will’s hand. “I need to speak to you alone.” She nodded toward the door. “Outside. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” He opened the door and went with her a few feet away from the hut. She took both of his hands in hers. “Daddy refuses to leave Umi without samples of the Eshe plant, and he’s convinced Mick that he can make him a wealthy man if—”
“Then I’ll just knock your father on his ass and carry him with us to the Footloose tomorrow. And if McGuire gives us any trouble, I’ll leave him here.”
“No.” Gwen swallowed hard. “My father is an old man. He has spent his entire life searching for this island, dreaming of the day that he could take the magical youth-serum plant back to the world as a gift. How can I ask him to leave here without the Eshe plant? It would kill him.”
“And if he stays here, he’ll die.”
“I know. But there is one other solution.”
“I’m already not liking the sound of this.”
She squeezed his hands. “You take Jordan and Cheryl with you at first light in the morning, back to the shore where you left the lifeboat. I will go with Daddy and Mick before dawn to the Fields of Eshe and help them gather a few samples. Then we’ll join y’all. If we don’t make it, if we’re captured or—”
Will grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “No way. No way in hell.”
“Please, Will. I have to do this.”
“No, Gwen, you don’t.”
She pulled free of his tenacious grip, then turned and walked farther away from the hut. He came up behind her, not touching her, not saying a word.
“Daddy and I have talked this through, and we’ve agreed that it’s the only way. No matter what happens, you and the others will be safe.” She couldn’t face him, couldn’t look him in the eye, knowing how angry he was.
“To hell with my being safe. If you think I’ll leave you here, you’d better think again.”
“Please, Will.”
“No. And that settles it.” He grasped her shoulders and yanked her back up against his chest.
“You can’t knock all three of us out and drag us with y’all through the jungle,” Gwen told him. “If you do this my way—”
“I’m not leaving you. Get that through your head.” He encompassed her in a possessive embrace. “If you won’t leave this godforsaken island without your father, and he won’t leave without that damn plant, then I’ll go to the Fields of Eshe at dawn and get the samples for him.”
She whirled around in his arms. “I would never ask you to take such a risk.” She caressed his cheek. “If anything happened to you, I couldn’t bear it.”
His eyes narrowed as his gaze locked with hers. “Then you know exactly how I feel.”
“But you don’t understand. I love you and—”
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s in love?”
She didn’t dare believe her own ears.
He captured her face with his open palms. “Of everyone in our group, I’m the only one with the kind of training it will require to go into those fields, steal a sample of the plant and get away without being captured.”
“You can’t go in alone. I’ll go with you.”
“No. You will take your father, Cheryl and Mick back to the beach and wait. I’ll take Jordan with me and we’ll meet up with y’all as soon as we have samples of the Eshe plant.”
A bittersweet feeling engulfed Gwen as she realized the depth of Will’s love for her and knew that she couldn’t allow him to risk his life to fulfill her father’s dream.
“All right,” she said, lying to him. “We will do this your way.”
“That’s my girl.”
When he kissed her, she clung to him, wanting to hold on to him forever.
Will woke with a start, but had no idea what had roused him. After making love with Gwen, he had fallen asleep almost instantly. He turned over in bed and reached for her. The other side of the bed was empty. He shot straight up and surveyed the dark room, the only illumination coming from the dying embers of the fire in the fireplace and the moonlight shining through the open window.
“Gwen?”
No response. Completely naked, he got out of bed and searched the hut. Where the hell was she and why hadn’t he heard her leave?
After putting on his clothes, he went outside. She was nowhere in sight. A sick, gut-tightening sensation gripped him. He made his way to the hut next door and knocked softly, calling Jordan’s name.
Within minutes Jordan opened the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you seen Gwen?”
“No. Why? What’s happened?”
“She’s gone.”
Cheryl came up beside Jordan. “Maybe she went to see her father, to try to talk sense to him again.”
“Why would she go in the middle of the night?”
“You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” Jordan asked.
“I know something’s wrong.”
Gwen hoped Will wouldn’t wake up until it was too late to try to stop her. If he figured out where she’d gone, he would come after her and risk his own life. She couldn’t let him do that. Not for her. Not for her father. She was Emery Arnell’s only child. It was her duty to stand by her father, to do her best to care for him, to help him.
The small child that still existed inside Gwen believed that if she did this, if she enabled her father to fulfill his lifelong dream, he would be grateful to her. He would love her.
Before her father and Mick McGuire had left her hut last night, she had told her father that she would slip away from Will in the night and come to him.
“Tell Mick to stay with you and when I can get away, I’ll come get you and we’ll go to the Fields of Eshe and get the samples you want.”
“But I thought Will was going to—”
“No, Will isn’t going.” She had told her father what she wanted him to believe. “Will was lying to you, to pacify you. He has no intention of getting the plants for you. If you want the plants, we have to get them ourselves, before dawn.”
She, her father and Mick had made their way by moonlight to the Fields of Eshe. The knee-high stalks glowed softly in the predawn darkness, as if they were lit from within.
“There’s not a guard in sight,” Mick said, keeping his voice low. “This should be a piece of cake.”
“Sebak said that Lord Baruti, the high priest, has a power that oversees these fields,” Emery told them. “We can’t be too careful. You two must let me gather the samples.”
“Go to it, old man,” Mick said. “Just make sure you get enough.” He gazed at the acres of flourishing plants that gleamed like yellow-green gold in the moonlight. “And I’ll carry them plants for you, Professor. They’ll be safe with me.”
“We will each carry a sample,” Emery said. “That way at least one sample should survive.”
“Good idea.” Mick’s smirking grin made Gwen’s skin crawl. He was such a sleazy bastard.
“We’ll stand guard while you retrieve the samples.” Gwen kissed her father’s cheek. “I’m so proud of you, Daddy. You’re going to be very famous.”
“And rich as Donald Trump—like a billionaire,” Mick added.
Her father smiled broadly. “This is the most exciting moment of my life. Nothing can compare to the knowledge that I will be able to give the world a precious gift and prove to my colleagues that I am no fool.”
Gwen’s heart beat loudly in her ears as she watched her father enter the fields. He walked slowly along the rows, inspecting the plants, taking his time as if there was no rush.
“What the hell is he doing?” Mick grumbled.
“He’s savoring the moment,” Gwen replied.
When her father had gone approximately twenty feet down the second row, he reached into his pants pocket and removed an old switchblade knife and a tattered handkerchief. He knelt down on his knees, spread the handkerchief out on the ground and grasped the tall, willowy Eshe plant, holding it with one hand while he used the knife to carefully dig around the roots. He unearthed one plant, laid the roots on the handkerchief and repeated the procedure with two other plants.
Gwen held her breath, waiting for an alarm to go off, for hidden guards to appear, for iron bars to come up out of the earth and surround the fields. But nothing happened. The only sound she heard was her own heavy breathing.
“Sebak was lying to the old man.” Mick laughed. “These people are stupid to let some high and mighty leader scare them from taking these plants for themselves.”
“Shh. Be quiet,” she warned him.
“Why? It’s not like the plants can hear us.” He laughed louder.
Emery came to them carrying the Eshe in his arms, the plants’ delicate roots wrapped in the handkerchief. “I will need to wate
r the roots and keep them damp. But they are large and healthy and should survive the journey without any problem.”
Mick slapped Emery on the back. “We’re in the money now, huh, Professor.”
Emery frowned. “Yes, yes, we’re in the money.”
Gwen realized her father was simply humoring Mick because he believed he could use the man’s greed to his advantage.
“There’s no point hanging around here,” Mick said. “I say we get these million-dollar babies—” he eyed the plants in Emery’s arms “—aboard the Footloose as soon as we can and set sail for the nearest port.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Gwen asked.
“If you’re talking about the others, forget them,” Mick said. “The Eshe plants are ours. I prefer dividing up the billions three ways instead of six. Besides, I’ve got no intention of letting your boyfriend turn me over to the authorities when we get back to civilization.”
Before either Gwen or her father could contradict Mick, beams of blinding white lights shot up from the earth, all around the Fields of Eshe.
Gwen gasped. Emery clutched his beloved plants to his chest. Mick’s eyes bugged out in shock.
“What the hell?” Mick bellowed.
“We have to make a run for it,” Gwen said. “Come on, Daddy. Hurry.”
Mick fled, leaving Gwen and her father, who couldn’t run. With her arm through his, Gwen hurried her father along, away from the fields and toward the jungle, intending to steer clear of the stone roadway. As they scurried for safety, Gwen heard a loud, thundering noise behind her, but realized turning back to see what pursued them would simply waste valuable time.
She caught glimpses of Mick as he rushed ahead of them. Suddenly a thin white light came flying through the air and hit Mick in the back. He dropped instantly, falling out of sight. Dear God, was he dead? Had their trackers killed him?
Suddenly her father grunted, then dropped to his knees. In her effort to keep him on his feet, Gwen went down with him. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him, so all she could manage was to ease him to the ground as slowly as possible. His arms fell open and the Eshe plants tumbled freely onto the grass.
His Only Obsession (Protectors #27) Page 18