“That kiss this morning was fine for amusing the spectators,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. His fingers trailed a burning path across her cheek and lips. Then his voice turned almost harsh as he added, “But now I’m going to show you how it should be done.”
Chapter Seven
Marc’s mouth crashed down on hers, almost violent with pent-up passion. His hands holding her face slid down to encircle her body, pinning her arms against her sides, arching her slim body against the taut, muscular length of his. His mouth moved against hers deeply, roughly.
Trish responded with the same wild passion, to a depth of feeling no man had ever aroused in her before. Her closed eyes and pounding pulse shut out the sights and sounds around her. She was aware only of Marc’s hard body holding her close, of a wild, soaring-in-space feeling. His hands moved across her back in a harsh yet sensual caress. Her arms strained to encircle his lean waist.
All day had been leading up to this moment, Trish thought, as his mouth slid down to trail kisses along her exposed throat. This morning’s brief, public kiss, all the touches, the glances, all merely preliminaries to this passionate moment. And now she knew what that unfamiliar, heady feeling she had had all day meant: She was falling in love.
She was trembling when he finally released her. There was a satisfied twist to the sensuous lips, as if knowing how he affected her pleased him. For a moment she was angry, but then she saw the faint tremor at the corner of his mouth and realized that his composure took more effort than he was willing to acknowledge.
“My car is over there,” he said, motioning with one hand, the other firm on her arm. “Beyond those houses.”
He took it for granted that she was leaving with him, and for one impetuous moment Trish was willing to abandon everything and follow him. Then she pulled back.
“I can’t, Marc. I really can’t!” she said breathlessly.
He turned to look at her again, and Trish knew he was frowning, though she couldn’t see his handsome face clearly. They were even farther away from the flickering torches now, and only the planes and angles of his face were visible, his eyes in dark shadows. He seemed to be calculating, weighing something in his mind.
Then, without speaking, he reached for her again, slowly, deliberately. He pulled her body against his, not explosively or violently now, but almost leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. He molded their bodies together and his kiss was as passionate as before, but different… the difference between a flash fire, quickly extinguished, and smoldering coals ignited into a never-ending, all-consuming flame. Butterfly kisses on her eyelids, feathery caresses of his lips on her temples, tantalizing nibbles at the corner of her mouth all left her weak and trembling.
Trish felt as if she were melting in his arms, devoid of willpower, logic, or rational thought. A liquid fire coursed through her veins. Finally he stepped back, his hands still gripping her shoulders as she swayed unsteadily.
“That… that isn’t fair,” she said weakly, almost resentful of the power he had over her, feeling somehow manipulated by his expertise. He laughed softly and Trish’s anger flared. “You did that on purpose!”
“Would you prefer I made love to you without purpose? Merely a pleasant way to pass the time of day, perhaps?”
Trish’s teeth caught her lower lip, full and swollen with the passion of his kisses. She felt bewildered and uncertain, doubtful of his feelings toward her. One minute he seemed on the verge of returning her awakening love, but a moment later she felt he was only toying with her, amusing himself with arousing her to melting helplessness. She remembered what he had said earlier in the day: “No one is serious at fiesta time.”
She was falling in love with him, deeply, passionately in love, but perhaps this was all just a fiesta game with him, an exhibition of his skill in the game of love in the same way his downing the targets had exhibited his skill in that area.
Trish took a shaky breath. “Edith would be hurt and Armando furious if I didn’t stay for the fireworks display he has worked so hard on.”
“I see.” Marc’s voice was cool. “You seem very concerned about Armando’s feelings.”
“Edith and I came together in her car and it would be rude to desert her and leave her to drive home alone.”
“Of course.” Now he sounded as remote as the mountain looming in the night sky behind him.
Trish opened her mouth, ready to throw courtesy and Edith’s feelings and Armando’s anger to the winds to erase that remote indifference in his voice and reverse the feeling of withdrawal she sensed in him.
But he didn’t give her the opportunity. He touched her elbow, firmly but impersonally turning her back toward the crowded street. “I’ll escort you to the fireworks display.”
If Trish thought that meant he intended to stay and view the display with her, she was mistaken. He took her to the edge of the field where others were now also gathering in anticipation.
“You should have a good view from here,” he remarked, as impersonal as a theater usher guiding a moviegoer to a seat. “Thank you for an enjoyable afternoon.”
Trish looked up at him, her lips parted. Her first impulse was to apologize, but then she pressed her lips together angrily. She had done nothing for which to apologize. If anyone should apologize it should be Marc for attempting to seduce her into being rude to her hosts.
She lifted her head and said with cool dignity, “I enjoyed it too.”
He turned and departed then, and her eyes reluctantly followed his tall figure threading through the crowd. At the end he hadn’t seemed so much angry with her as merely resigned. She almost wished he had yelled and railed at her. Anything would have been better than this aloof, impersonal indifference. It made her feel again that he had tried to manipulate and use her, and when he had failed, he had simply shrugged and cut her adrift.
She examined her own feelings again. Had she really been so concerned about Edith’s and Armando’s feelings? Or had she been afraid of her own feelings, the subconscious knowledge that her body, not her mind, was in control around Marc? No, it was more than that, more than just physical desire. She was falling in love with him, plunging uncontrollably with mind, soul, and body.
The fireworks interrupted her tremulous self-examination with a burst of glittering blue and gold calculated to catch everyone’s attention. In quick succession explosions of red and sparkling silver, fountains of trailing stars and glowing sunbursts followed. Then came a rather long, unexplained delay. Some people started to drift away, thinking the display was over, but then the bursts began again, bringing ahs from the adults and squeals from the children. Trish had to smile when one firework gave a harmless whoosh and fizzled to the ground, and the audience laughed. Armando would be furious. Trish knew him well enough to realize he thought of this as a dramatic presentation, not something to be laughed at. The grand finale, also slow in coming, was a ground display of sizzling fireworks that in the afterglow left the burning image of the Costa Rican flag.
Afterward Trish wandered around pretending to look at the displays again but really watching for Marc. Disappointed, she saw no sign of his commanding figure.
Evidently he had left. He was behaving like a pouting child, she told herself angrily. But she had only to remember the passion of those kisses to realize he was no child.
Finally Trish crossed the makeshift soccer field to where Edith and Armando were still moving around, flashlights bobbing. Armando appeared to be setting up some sort of complicated display for the next evening’s performance. Edith was gathering used materials into a trash box.
“It was a marvelous display,” Trish called. “Congratulations.”
“Armando is angry with me. He says I am all thumbs as an assistant.” Edith laughed, but it was a nervous sound and she sent Armando an uneasy glance.
“Or feet,” he retorted sharply, humorlessly.
“Armando had a line of rockets set up to fire. I stumbled over them and caused a delay,” Edith explain
ed. “Perhaps you noticed.”
“It wasn’t all that noticeable,” Trish assured her. “Everyone thought it was a fantastic display.”
Armando was still working on the ground display, ignoring the two of them. Trish could see Edith watching him nervously out of the corner of her eye. With Armando in such ill humor over something so minor, it appeared to Trish that the best course of action was to leave him to stew by himself.
“If you’re finished picking things up, perhaps we should start home,” Trish suggested to Edith.
Edith looked relieved at the suggestion and nodded, but Armando grumbled something about needing some help yet.
“Of course,” Edith said, her voice strained. “If you’ll just explain to me what it is you want—”
“Trish, how about you? Are you all thumbs and feet?” Armando asked in a sarcastic tone.
Trish had no desire to stay and help Armando do anything, but one look at Edith’s tense face made her say tentatively, “Well, if there’s anything I could do to help…”
“Yes, why don’t you stay and help Armando,” Edith agreed, jumping on the idea with alacrity. “I’ll run on home and have something ready to eat by the time the two of you get there.”
Armando made no comment one way or the other. Trish leaned over and squeezed Edith’s arm.
“Don’t let it upset you. Men get these vile moods when things don’t go to suit them,” she whispered. Especially, she thought to herself as she heard Armando hit his finger and curse under his breath in Spanish, when it’s their own fault and they blame someone else.
Edith left then, angling across the field to miss the crowded street where the marimba music was still going strong. Trish walked over to Armando.
“What can I do to help?”
“I’m going to do a special display from the top of that hill over there,” Armando said. “You can help carry things in a minute.”
Trish stood around on one foot and then the other, wishing she had brought a sweater. There was one in the car, but Edith had no doubt driven off with it by now. Finally Armando handed her a hammer and some string and told her to follow him. Trish was half annoyed, half amused. Certainly Armando could have carried those small additional items himself. He was annoyed with Edith’s awkwardness, or his own shortcomings, and being childishly petulant.
There was supposed to be a trail up the hill, but the way branches slapped her in the face and vines tangled around her feet, Trish had her doubts that they were on it. Panting, they finally arrived at the top. Trish was pleased to find the view, at least, well worth the trip. The entire village lay below them, the main street a riot of color and motion. From somewhere beyond the village came another strange glow. Trish watched it for a moment but couldn’t identify it. Perhaps some revelers were having a private celebration, she decided.
Armando asked her to hold a couple of boards together while he nailed them. He explained that what he intended was to have Edith or Trish come up here and set this off as the finale, which would surprise everyone since they wouldn’t be expecting anything from this direction. Trish thought privately that it would have made more sense to come up here in the daylight tomorrow and do this, but perhaps Armando was afraid someone would see and that would ruin the surprise.
Trish looked out over the village again before they started down. There seemed to be an unusual amount of activity and even shouts audible this far away. Perhaps that was the way a fiesta ended for the night, Trish decided.
Armando paused beside her. “I should not have been so abrupt with Edith, should I? She was trying to help and I lost my temper,” he said regretfully. Trish didn’t comment and he added, “But I want to thank you for… for smoothing things over.” Unexpectedly he reached for her hand and touched it to his lips.
Trish momentarily stiffened but there was nothing but gratitude mixed with apology on his face, and she felt guilty for even momentarily misinterpreting the gesture. Marc had manipulated her so skillfully with his kisses that now she was suspicious of any man’s actions.
“Come,” Armando said. “I must apologize to Edith.”
They made better time going down the hill and headed back toward the original fireworks site. Armando said his pickup was parked there.
A man came running across the field toward them. “Seňor! Seňor Albeniz!”
Trish turned, alarmed by something in the man’s voice. Armando strode out to meet him, asking a question in sharp Spanish.
The man’s answer was rapid-fire. Trish cursed her limited Spanish, which always seemed to fail her just when she needed it most. But fear stabbed at her when she caught Edith’s name and saw the roll of the man’s eyes. He motioned toward the road and with a sickening plunge of her stomach Trish remembered that peculiar glow she had seen.
“What is it?” she cried. “What has happened?”
Armando turned back to her. “There has been an accident. Edith’s car. He does not know how badly she is injured or if—”
He didn’t finish the awful thought. Or if she is dead. The tools, the fireworks, everything was forgotten, abandoned as Armando ran to the pickup. Trish barely had time to slide into the passenger’s side before he hurtled the pickup out of the concealing thicket, careening wildly over shrubs and vines. Trish could see that the street was emptying as people thronged down the road. Armando used the horn, hardly slowing for the pedestrians, and they shoved and fell over one another getting out of his way. Trish knew she yelled something at him but he didn’t seem to hear.
The glow grew as they rounded one steep, twisting curve after another, and then it was no longer a glow but a leaping mountain of flame. Within the flames could be seen the gaunt framework of what had once been a car.
“Oh, my God!” Trish breathed in horror.
Armando seemed too stunned and shocked even to speak. He stopped dead in the middle of the road and his hands gripped the wheel as though frozen there. He stared at the leaping tongues as if transfixed.
Trish was dimly aware that someone was pounding on the window on Armando’s side. She touched him, and reached across him to roll the window down when he seemed too numbed to respond.
The man rattled something in rapid Spanish. Again Trish felt helpless, but Armando stirred, then barked a question in reply. The man smiled and nodded with an eager “Si!”
Armando turned back to Trish. “Edith isn’t in there.” He reached in his pocket and ran a handkerchief with shaky hands across his forehead. “Someone got her out before the car burst into flames.”
“Thank God.”
Trish leaned back limply, her head thrown back on the seat, but her relief was short-lived, as Armando went on to say that Edith was injured, no one seemed to know how seriously, and one of the other cafetal owners was taking her directly to a San Jose hospital.
Armando didn’t ask if Trish wanted to go along. He didn’t look back as they left the burning car, the flames beginning to die down now. Armando drove without talking, almost as if he had forgotten that Trish was even beside him.
It was a wild ride, but Trish knew nothing she could say would slow Armando down. She gritted her teeth and held on, trying not to think of that mangled, flaming car behind them. What had happened? Edith was a cautious driver, experienced on these steep, winding roads. Perhaps a disastrous attempt to avoid some wild animal crossing the road?
“It was my fault.” Armando’s low, agonized voice interrupted her thoughts. “I was cross with her. I hurt her feelings and she is sensitive. It is my fault!”
“Armando, no,” Trish protested, but suddenly she couldn’t put any authority into her voice. Edith had been upset when she left the fiesta. A curve taken too fast while her mind was elsewhere.
“She was upset. She drove too fast, too carelessly,” Armando said, putting Trish’s thoughts into words. “And all because of me, because of the stupid things I said.” He burst into a torrent of self-berating Spanish.
Trish patted his arm helplessly. “Isn�
�t there someplace closer than San Jose where they could have taken her?”
Armando didn’t answer, his thoughts evidently turning inward again. Trish slumped back, wishing Marc were here with his strength and assurance. Her earlier annoyance with him was gone in her desperate need for him now.
They reached the outskirts of San Jose. Armando took a different route from the one Trish and Marc had taken to the city. Within minutes they pulled into the brightly lit emergency entrance of a hospital. Armando slammed out of the pickup and ran for the door, not waiting for Trish.
Inside, several people were milling around. Trish vaguely recognized them as people to whom she had been introduced earlier in the day, but she could recall no names. The conversation was all in Spanish, much to Trish’s frustration, though she understood enough to gather Edith had been taken into emergency surgery.
At least she wasn’t dead.
It was a blurred, unreal night. Edith came out of surgery but was in Intensive Care. She had broken her arm, the jagged end of the bone protruding through the skin. She also had head injuries and there was the possibility of internal damage. Armando walked around too dazed to communicate, muttering to himself. He angrily brushed away Trish’s attempts to soothe him and ease his torment over the unkind things he had said to Edith.
The next morning Edith was finally taken to a regular hospital room. She was still heavily sedated, however, and the doctor suggested it would be evening before they could talk with her. Armando seemed too distracted to know what to do next, and Trish gently suggested that perhaps they could find rooms nearby and get some rest. He nodded and Trish gave him a gentle push toward the door while she went back to ask if there was anything they should bring for Edith that evening.
A moment later she was glad Armando had gone out to the pickup because Marc walked in the other door. Trish moved toward him and felt herself swaying. All night she had been the strong, efficient one, filling out forms, answering questions, reassuring Armando. But she had been surviving on sheer willpower these last few hours, and now that Marc was here all she wanted was the secure strength of his arms around her. Coming through the door he looked like a solid rock of strength, his step firm, his clothes crisp and fresh. Her steps toward him quickened.
Shadows of the Heart Page 11