“But why does it bother him if you do? If it’s that important, why don’t you teach him?”
“You are American.” The señora shrugged again, then tossed the towel into the corner as a little girl ran in with a smallish jar and had to be physically shooed out. “Gracias, hijita... Your men think different from ours. Our men are very proud, very...”
“Silly? Insecure?” a very tired Cara supplied, but her frivolity was silenced by the other woman’s dignified frown.
“It may seem so to you, but for us it is very important to keep our men happy.”
“But does that mean he has to take away your identity and your accomplishments?” Cara tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. Fatigue washed over her and it was all she could do to stay upright as the señora generously applied salve to her bug bites. The salve smelled vaguely of swamps and dark, moist places, but at first touch it stopped the horrendous itching which had plagued her and that made Cara very happy.
“Alejandro takes nothing away from me. He gives me so much more than I can ever give him.” The plump olive face, wrinkled as much from a hard life as from age, suddenly became as soft and radiant as a girl’s. “When you find the man who is the other half of your heart, you will understand. He will be more important than anything to you, just as you will be more important than anything to him.”
“The other half of your heart?”
“When I was working in Puerto Vallarta a very smart man, a professor, once told me a legend of some old people in a faraway land. They believed that before you are born, you are two people in one body, you and your love. Then, when one of you is to be born, you are torn apart and made into two, so you spend your time on earth trying to find the one who is the other half of your heart.”
Something quivered in Cara’s soul with a sound of chimes. “What a lovely legend.”
“Of course, the priest said it is just pagan silliness and no child of the Church should listen to it, but...” she smiled again. “ Even so, when it happens to you, you will know.”
Cara would have asked more, but the door flew open and in popped another daughter. Señora Fonseca thanked her, took the cloth she carried and draped it over Cara’s head.
“My eldest daughter’s nightgown,” she said proudly.
“Oh, I couldn’t...”
“Carmela herself suggested it. It is clean,” the señora added in sudden anxiety.
“Of course! I didn’t mean to suggest...” Cara flushed with sudden horror. “I just meant... it’s so pretty.”
There was no mirror in the stark cinderblock room, but Cara could tell the delicate cotton nightgown was more than pretty. Tucked and ruffled, it was undeniably modest yet still it carried an innocent air of sensuality. It fit as if it had been made for her. The lace edged neck and sleeves suggested an earlier century while the neat hem floated just above her ankles.
“Thank you. I made it. It is for her...” Her plump face contorted as the señora struggled for the word. “...for her wedding box.”
“Her trousseau?”
“Yes! Her trousseau!” The elusive word finally caught, the señora repeated it several times to imprison it in her memory.
“But I can’t wear this!” Carefully Cara started to skin out of the soft fabric, only to be stopped by her hostess’ frantic hands. “It’s for her trousseau...it’s something special.”
“But it will hurt Carmela if you do not! It is for good luck, you see... She and Alfonso are to be married after the harvest. She wants to be as happy as you and your husband are.”
“But we’re not...” Cara managed to stutter.
“Oh, I know you are a little upset with him now, and who would not be after he manages to wreck your car in the jungle? Men are such little boys, always seeking adventure and wanting to show off to the women they love, and with no more thought of the consequences than a child.” The señora laughed indulgently. “I could tell you about Alejandro and some of the things our boys have done. It is a woman’s duty to overlook and to love, and do not tell me there is not love between you. I have seen the way you look at each other.”
The matter settled, she pulled the gown back into place. Cara could only stare. The woman was either blind or a raving lunatic. For one frightening, insubstantial moment, it seemed that the cinderblock walls were falling in on her. She was still trapped. If this woman believed that Dave Burkhart was her loving husband, there would be no way Cara could get her help in escaping. Señora Fonseca would treat the whole thing as a highly romantic lovers’ quarrel.
She was no closer to getting away than she had been out in the jungle.
Cara began to tremble. Would this nightmare never end?
“Ay, pobrecita! You are too tired. Come and lie down.”
Lie down? Asleep she would be defenseless. She had to think of a way to get away, to get back to Buck...
Without really knowing how she got there, Cara found herself lying in a big brass bed. There were soft sheets of real linen, and their fresh scent indicated that they had been just put on. A big glass of milky liquid was placed into her hand and she was urged to drink.
She had never tasted anything like it before. Sweetish and vaguely alcoholic, it went down easily, cleansing her throat of dust and taking the worst edge off her hunger.
“That’s good, but I’m awfully hungry... We haven’t eaten...” The words were thick and uncomfortable in her mouth.
“We are fixing food now,” the señora said maternally. “Why don’t you rest until it is done?”
“There’s something I have to tell you...” Cara said, but at the moment, her sleep-befuddled mind couldn’t think of what.
Cara wasn’t aware of having slept, but she jerked into sudden, heart-stopping wakefulness by the creaking of the bedsprings and the tilting of the mattress. The señora was gone and there was...The nerve of that creature!
Grabbing the sheet and holding it high in a gesture worthy of any outraged Victorian maiden, Cara snapped, “Get out of here!”
Jumping up, Dave swore a mild oath. “You scared the hell out of me! I thought you were asleep. Sorry I disturbed you.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
At any other time, under any other circumstances, Cara would have been amused at the sight of Dave Burkhart. He was scrubbed and shiny, his hair still damp, and clad most improbably in a gentleman’s nightshirt of a design popular for most of the 19th century. It was long-sleeved and high-necked and fell in voluminous folds to just above his knees.
In spite of herself, Cara could feel a bubble of laughter swelling in her throat. She would not succumb to hysteria again, she simply would not!
“It’s Señor Fonseca’s,” Dave said almost apologetically. “His good one.”
“So good he never wore it,” Cara couldn’t help saying, giving a critical eye to the stiff, yellowed folds.
“Apparently. Now scoot over.”
Tension snapped back into Cara’s body and she clenched the sheet tighter. “I will not! Get out of here or I’ll scream!”
Dave seemed disinclined to answer. He simply lay down beside her, sending Cara scuttling to the far side of the bed.
“I will, I’ll scream!”
“Go ahead,” Dave said around a yawn so big it stretched his face.
“I suppose you told them I’m crazy, too!”
“Look, Miss Waters, they’re decent people and they think we’re married, so of course they gave us their bed. Now I’m tired and I know you are, so let’s be adult about this and get some rest.”
His proposal was so straightforward Cara almost believed him.
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” she snapped, then realizing what she had said, stammered on, “I…I mean, I don’t want to go to bed with you.... I mean...”
“I know what you mean,” Dave said wearily, wiggling into the pillow. “And believe me, you’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m just saying we both need some sleep and I for one intend to get some. I sugges
t you do the same.”
He wasn’t moving, so Cara relaxed a bit. She was so tired even keeping her eyes open took concentrated effort. It wasn’t as if he were a complete stranger. She had slept in his arms in the jeep...
Yes, jeered her mind, and what did he do then? He kissed you and held you and you...
Cara flopped down on her pillow, forbidding her thoughts to go any further.
“Very wise, Miss Waters.”
“Just don’t get the idea that you can do anything...”
Dave yawned again, then looked over at her with a sardonic expression. “And what makes you think I would want to?”
“That’s an insulting thing to say!” was out of Cara’s mouth before she knew she was thinking it.
Dave turned his head on the pillow and regarded her dispassionately. “Another tactic, Miss Waters?”
“No! I…I just...Oh, this is all so horrible! Why did you snatch me off the street? What do you want with me?”
He moved so swiftly, Cara was crushed breathless in his arms. A fire flashed over her body, sparkling, sensual, and absolutely overwhelming. “What do you want me to want with you? Something like this?” Ruthlessly his lips descended on hers, soft, warm, and plundering.
To Cara the touch of his mouth on hers felt like an electric shock. At first, all she knew was an overwhelming wave of outrage, but her body betrayed her. It responded to the passion of his kiss, the delicious sensation of his tongue insistently probing her mouth, melting against the tenseness of his slim musculature
“Please,” she managed to whisper in a barely audible voice, “don’t.”
“What?” he asked in a hoarse, shaking voice. He did stop kissing her, but his mouth was so close Cara could feel his lips brushing hers. “Why? Don’t you like it?”
Cara struggled ineffectually in his imprisoning arms. “You’re a monster!” she hissed breathlessly, then was shocked into silence as Dave Burkhart’s hand began a gentle circuit around the middle of her back.
“Stop it,” she whimpered. She would have called him names, screamed for help, anything, had she been able to get her breath. He was using only one arm to hold her, but it was enough to keep her immobile against him. Too late, she thought of kicking; his leg was thrown over both hers in a gesture that might look affectionate but was as immobilizing as a wrestler’s.
“Stop acting, Miss Waters!” he snarled, as angry as she had ever heard him. “You’re willing to give yourself to Buck Tarrant, so why not to me?”
“Buck’s a gentleman,” Cara gasped. She was beginning to get dizzy. “And I love him! We’ve waited...”
“Tarnation!” Suddenly Dave released her, leaning back to study her with the bemused expression of someone who has just found a totally new species. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”
Had she been more able to breathe properly, Cara would have been mortified at the sudden, incriminating blush that stained her cheeks.
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped, trying not to whoop for air. She still felt dizzy. Even though he now held her as loosely as a tame bird, her exhausted limbs refused to move.
“Of course...the romance, the whole bit! I knew... No wonder you’re such a defender of Tarrant.”
“What are you talking about?” Cara tried to sound fierce and logical, but she could feel her eyes beginning to cross from fatigue.
“Nothing, my dear Miss Waters, nothing that can’t wait until we’ve had some rest. Lie still and sleep...”
It was the best advice Cara had heard in a long time. Her body ached for sleep and it didn’t seem to matter that his arm was still around her or that her head was nestled into the smooth hollow of his shoulder. Bonelessly she melted against him, her own breathing rapidly synchronizing to the measured rise and fall of his lean, muscled chest.
Cara’s mind perversely struggled against oblivion. Even as her body relaxed, it played and replayed Señora Fonseca’s definition of ‘the other half of your heart’ and it nagged at her. More than just an old legend, it seemed to her sleep-soggy mind to contain an essential truth that was just beyond her comprehension.
Was Buck the other half of her heart?
She was attracted to him. She thought him handsome. She enjoyed being with him. She thought he was sexy. She loved him, thought she loved him, so that had to make him the other half of her heart, didn’t it?
If so, why did she feel so empty when she put her feelings for him against that measure?
Was her love so shallow that out of sight meant out of mind and out of love? Their romance had been such an intense, whirlwind affair. Three months ago, she hadn’t even known him. Then he had entered her life and taken over, filling it with his laughter and his hugs and his presence until she had forgotten that there had ever been anything before.
Right now, he was probably out running around frantically trying to find and rescue her. If he burst in here and swept her up in his arms...
Even in her semi-comatose state, Cara’s mind rejected that as nothing more than a scenario from a bad television episode. Buck was a sensible man; he would have mobilized the local police and the American ambassador, or consul, or someone like that. He would be waiting at headquarters for word of her, not chasing out looking for her himself. Besides, even if he were, the odds of him being the one to find her in all these millions of square miles of jungle and beach would be minuscule.
But he would find her.
He would.
He had to.
Bleakly comforted by that thought, Cara’s mind finally went into sleep, unaware that she was cradled in the embrace of her kidnapper. She was not even conscious of the rumble of personnel trucks not a hundred yards away.
Chapter Six
“Good morning,” Cara said brightly to the waiting band of stair-stepped children. None of the shining faces turned toward her understood what she was saying, but they smiled in return and made room for her at the long table under the flowering arbor. Someone passed her a big plate of beans and tortillas and salsa.
“Buenas dias,” said Señora Fonseca. Her voice was crisp and her face rigid as she put a fresh container of hot tortillas in front of her guest.
The chilly greeting made Cara look up. The señora’s hard, closed expression evaporated any sense of pleasure about the morning from Cara and her stomach sank. She had been very aware of Dave Burkhart’s absence from their shared bedroom this morning and had been grateful for it. Though their closeness during the night had been both innocent and passionless, prompted by nothing but sheer physical proximity, it sent scalding waves of shame through Cara. A fine heroine she was, just to lie there and sleep, no matter how tired she was! She should have knocked him out or tied him up or something and gotten away.
But that didn’t explain the señora’s resentful look or obviously forced hospitality, both of which were so very opposite from the previous night’s friendliness. Cara gestured toward her pink dress.
“I wanted to thank you for fixing this for me... I appreciate it so much.”
She had, too; finding her under things and the pink dress, all washed and ironed and mended until it looked respectable enough to wear, waiting for her had begun Cara’s day with a small spot of happiness.
That, and finding Dave Burkhart gone.
Did she dare hope it was for good?
Señora Fonseca said nothing, but even on that hot tropical morning beneath the vine-laden arbor her glance was frigid.
“Is...” Cara stopped. What on earth was she going to call that man? She couldn’t say her ‘husband’ and she couldn’t call him her ‘kidnapper’, not this morning, not after she had spent the night in his embrace, and if she didn’t call him anything... Drat the man! “Is Dave around?”
The older lady pointedly ignored her, speaking sharply to the cluster of children and sending them scurrying inside.
Alone together, with no Dave Burkhart in sight. If there ever were a chance to make an escape, this was it. She might be a bust as a
heroine, Cara decided, but she wasn’t going to be stupid.
“I know this is going to sound strange, Señora Fonseca, but I’ve got to ask you to help me... I’ve got to get away...” Cara began, then hopelessly sputtered, “Is anything wrong, señora?”
“Mi esposo no me gusta hablar ingles.”
Cara stared. Last night the woman had spoken English as fluently as any American. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak any Spanish. What did you say?”
“Mi esposo no...”
“She’s telling you her husband doesn’t like for her to speak English.”
Dave Burkhart didn’t look as if he had slept very well. In the pitiless morning light, he looked strained and pale under his sunburn. His clothes, too, had been carefully restored, though washing had obviously shrunk his white cotton trousers. If they had been tight before, now they were just barely inside the bounds of decency for anyone who wasn’t a rock star!
Hopes that Cara didn’t even realize she had shattered almost audibly.
“Good morning.”
“You’ve eaten. Good. Come on.”
“What?”
“I said, come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No.”
“Look, Miss Waters...”
“No, I will not look, and no, I will not go, and yes, I’m tired of this! Whatever you’re up to, it’s over as far as I’m concerned. Get that, Mr. Burkhart, or whoever you are? I’m staying here until I can get back to Buck and that’s that!” Cara stood with her hands on her hips, stamping her foot for emphasis and ready for a fight.
Dave Burkhart didn’t fight. He simply scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then headed off toward the shed. It was potentially disastrous, considering the amount of breakfast Cara had just eaten. The opportunity to scream, fight, and perhaps regain her freedom was lost while she convinced her protesting stomach that it didn’t want to do anything rash.
The pick-up, its engine running, stood by the stick shed. Without ceremony, Dave deposited Cara on the seat and slid in beside her. Before she could even think about sliding out the other side, he jammed the creaky old transmission into gear and roared out of the rough yard at a speed the truck had probably never achieved even when it was new. Then Cara could only concentrate on hanging on tightly enough to keep from being thrown from floor to ceiling and back again.
The Other Half of Your Heart Page 7