by Jayne Castle
"Let's go, Reva," Josh said calmly, "I've been waiting too long already." He tugged once again at her wrist.
"I'll summon the manager," Bruce announced with great decisiveness. He flung down his napkin and got to his feet, glaring at the taller man.
"No, Bruce, I can handle this," Reva interposed quickly, rising to her feet also in response to the light pressure Josh was applying. The important thing was to prevent a scene which would humiliate Bruce and herself. And that meant leaving with Josh. "Mr. Corbett means no harm," she sighed, her eyes on Bruce's incensed features. "He's just not accustomed to the ways of normal, civilized society," she added meaningfully. "I'd better have a long talk with him and it would be less uncomfortable for all of us if I did it in private. Forgive me?" she smiled with rueful appeal as Josh made to move off with herself in tow. He was no longer interested in Bruce, who was obviously not going to make any move to stop him.
"I'll phone you in the morning," Bruce stated emphatically. "You're sure you'll be all right?" Clearly he wanted a way out of the situation, too.
"Quite all right." She grabbed her gold evening bag and the shawl which matched her long silk sheath.
"Very well, but I don't care for your attitude one bit, Corbett!" Bruce informed the other man disdainfully.
"I wasn't overly pleased to find you out with Reva, either." Josh smiled with a very feral expression. "But we must be gentlemen about this, mustn't we?" he added sardonically, starting down the row of interested diners seated nearby.
With a last, reassuring glance at Bruce, Reva stopped trying to resist the chain on her wrist and allowed herself to be led past the astonished maitre d' and out into the chill night air of the late Oregon fall. It took all her willpower to keep from screaming at her captor. Only the years of practice in dealing with the various temperaments of corporate management enabled Reva to maintain some outward appearance of cool hauteur. She might owe this man her life, but she would never forgive him for coming back into it.
"All right, Josh," she stated evenly as the door to the restaurant swung shut behind them. "You've had your big scene. There's no need to continue dragging me along like this. I've agreed to come peacefully."
But he wasn't listening to her. Instead, he'd halted beside a long black car parked illegally at the curb and was fishing out a set of keys. With an economy of movement that brought back memories to Reva, he handed her into the front seat, slammed the door, and went rapidly around to the driver's side.
An instant later he was sliding in beside her, reaching for her with his large competent hands, his face drawn and intent. Instinctively Reva tried to edge away. In the confines of the car he seemed large and overpowering. But he appeared unaware of her attempt at retreat, clamping his fingers around her shoulders and holding her still in front of him as he sat twisted in the driver's seat. The lion eyes raked her as if, in the relative privacy of the car, they could finally drink their fill.
"Reva, Reva, honey," he growled in a husky whisper. "It's been four long months. God! How I've ached for you, woman! Do you know that?" He shook his dark head in rueful relief and the fingers on her shoulders clenched and unclenched with a strange urgency.
In the dim light of the street lamps Reva noticed the small things she hadn't had time to become aware of in the restaurant. He was just as hard and lean as she had remembered but the silver at his temples lent a surprisingly distinguished look which hadn't been so noticeable four months ago when his hair had been longer and he'd had a couple days' growth of rough beard. The expensive material of his dark suit and crisp white shirt was a definite improvement over the khaki slacks and shirt she'd last seen him wearing, Reva decided. He looked, in fact, quite presentable if one ignored the crimson slash of his tie, she told herself wryly. But he didn't fool her for a moment.
"I'm glad you're out of that mess safe and sound," Reva said politely, her body stiff and resisting in his grasp. The shawl she'd wrapped around the shoulders of the long-sleeved, iridescent silk dress provided some protection from the strength of his fingers, but not much. She could feel them biting gently into her flesh.
"Were you worried about me?" he asked softly, and she had the impression he would have been pleased with her concern. He released her shoulders abruptly to cup her face between roughly gentle hands.
"Frankly, no." Reva shrugged with deliberate callousness. Never would she let him know how many nights she'd awakened from the nightmares and stared at the ceiling, wondering what had become of him. She rarely had those dreams anymore. It had been only during that first month that she'd dreaded going to sleep. "You seemed to know what you were doing." Josh Corbett didn't need anyone to worry about him!
"I'll assume that's some kind of compliment," he said flatly,' watching her cool eyes with a kind of hunger. "Although I wondered at first if that wasn't the reason you were out with that boy tonight. ..."
"If what wasn't the reason?" Reva demanded.
"If you'd convinced yourself I hadn't made it back to the States I could see why you might have tried to console yourself with someone else," he explained patiently.
"Josh, let's get something very clear between us," Reva said carefully, determinedly. "I was out with Bruce tonight because I wanted to go out with him. I am, in fact, considering marriage to him. I have not spent the last four months pining for you. I was very grateful to you, of course, but I don't recall ever giving you the impression that I expected you to look me up when you got back!"
"But I'm here, Reva," he said calmly, "and I don't believe you. You must have been expecting me because I told you to expect me." Such vast, complete assurance, Reva thought a little dizzily. How did one combat it?
"Josh, what happened between us was over four months ago'when you put me on that plane. You know that as well as I do. We had nothing holding us together except the business of trying to stay alive. I admit I could never have made it without you," Reva said with passionate honesty, "but you can't have mistaken my gratitude for some undying love. During those three days I told you something of my life and my career. Surely you understood that our backgrounds were completely different, completely incompatible. . . ."
"You didn't answer my question in the restaurant," he interrupted gently. "Do you still have the nightmare?"
"No," she lied heavily, "and it would be none of your business if I did!"
The honey of his eyes flowed over her face, soft and hungry, and Reva knew he hadn't listened to a thing she had said.
"I'll take you home, Reva," he said deeply. "We have a lot of lost time to make up. But first. .." He broke off
his words abruptly and bent his head as if he could no longer resist the temptation of her mouth. Holding her face carefully and firmly, Josh took her lips in a sudden, fiercely possessive kiss filled with barely restrained raw male hunger.
Helpless, Reva felt the heat of his mouth moving on hers, tasting, exploring, relearning. He was like a warrior home after months of danger and privation. Such men went a little crazy at first. Everyone knew that, Reva assured herself. And if a man has convinced himself that there is a certain woman waiting for him it made sense he might seek her out, expecting a warm welcome. Shouldn't she be a little patient with this man who had saved her life?
But the primitive, compelling demand in his kiss warned against granting him even the smallest of kindnesses. He would only swallow them up and instantly demand more even, as now, when he was unsatisfied with the taste of her lips, he began insisting on the full surrender of her mouth.
Very carefully Reva lifted her hands to his shoulders and tried to push against him, but he hardly seemed to notice.
"Reva, honey," he grated at the corner of her mouth, his breath warm on her skin, "I could take you here and now in the back seat of this damn car, I'm that desperate for you!"
His hands still cupping her face, Josh moved his thumbs to the edge of her lips, forcing them apart. Reva tried to protest but the small sound was drowned beneath his heavier groan of passio
n as his tongue swept into the undefended valley of her mouth, plundering the warmth it found there.
A tiny, numbing edge of panic began to filter through Reva's awareness. Things were getting out of hand. His
weight shifted unexpectedly as he lowered strong fingers to her waist to pull her more tightly against him. Reva took the opportunity to struggle in earnest, turning her head to the side. The small action jarred her glasses, knocking them askew, and she instantly reached up to rescue them.
The little gesture was enough to cause Josh reluctantly to lift his head, his gold cat eyes flaming softly down at her as she made a production out of straightening the chic frames and righting her shawl. She didn't look at him.
"Sorry, honey," he apologized with a wry grin, running the hand at her waist up and down her spine as he watched her put herself to rights. "A car is definitely not the place to show you how much I've missed you. But you do look kind of cute with those funny glasses tilted on your nose and your hair starting to come apart."
Reva hastily tucked in the strands of light-brown hair which had loosened from the neat bundle at her nape. Funny glasses, indeed! Those frames had cost almost a hundred dollars. She didn't know why that particular remark bothered her, but it did.
"If you're quite through with the welcome demonstration, would you mind taking me on home?" she said with chilling politeness, sliding as far as possible into her corner of the seat and fastening the lap belt.
"Home is exactly where I want to take you," he replied in a low, velvety voice that made her glance up warily. His eyes never left her taut profile.
"You don't seem to have heard a word I've said this evening, Josh," she sighed. "Please don't play stupid. We both know you're not. I'm trying very hard to be patient and polite but you must see that I'm not going to pretend that I came back from that jungle with any notion of perpetuating our... our relationship! As I said earlier, I'm
glad you're safely back, but you can't really expect me to throw myself into your arms." She swung around to frown appealingly at him in the shadows. "Josh, those three days were a nightmare I've put behind me. I just want to forget the whole thing. I've come back to my safe and sane life here in the city and everything is back on track. I just want to forget it! Can't you understand that?"
"You can forget the bad part, honey," Josh said gently, his arm resting lightly on the steering wheel as he studied her. "But you can't forget me. I won't let you," he added simply. He turned and flicked on the engine. "I agree that we should go home, though—this car is cold and I feel the overpowering need for more privacy than it can provide!"
Reva drew a slow, steadying breath. She could deal with this. She could deal with almost anything. Patience, firmness, and determination were called for here. She said nothing as Josh guided the car away from the curb and out into traffic. Nor did she volunteer any directions. He had clearly found her address once already this evening. That thought did bring on a question, however.
"How did you know I was at the restaurant?" she asked distantly, her gaze on the city lights.
"Your next-door neighbor told me. She heard me knocking and looked out to see who was there in the hallway." Josh slanted his passenger an enigmatic look. "I explained who I was and she told me you'd gone out."
"How, exactly, did you explain yourself to Sandy?" Reva asked with great foreboding.
"I told her the truth, of course," he returned with a dismissing shrug. "I explained I'd come to find you and marry you."
"Marry me!" Reva was stunned at his audacity. "You told Sandy you'd come to marry me? My God! She must still be howling with laughter. Oh, Josh, how could you
do such a thing? Even you must have some notion of behavior. You can't have lived your whole life in that horrid little country!" Reva collapsed in disgust, sinking deeply into the seat.
"But I am going to marry you, honey," he informed her quietly, and then he slanted her a softened glance. "Did you think I wasn't intending something permanent? Is that why you were so upset this evening when you realized I'd arrived? You thought I'd only come back for a brief affair?"
"No," she retorted grimly. "That was not my main concern! Whatever affair we were fated to have is well and truly over!"
"I remember three days of keeping you safe," he mused, "and two nights of keeping you warm while you slept, utterly exhausted, curled against me like a kitten. And I remember the third night when you awoke with nightmares. . . ."
"Please, Josh," she begged, his words reviving sternly suppressed images.
"And when I comforted you," he continued ruthlessly, "you turned to me like a flower to the sun. I'd never wanted a woman as much as I wanted you that night, Reva, and when we made love I could tell the feeling was mutual. You were all soft passion and fire and . . ."
"Stop it!" Reva snarled, turning her head to glare furiously at him. "I was a frightened, overwrought, and exceedingly grateful woman. You represented the only safety and security to be had in that hell. It was only natural I let you make love to me. It was .. . it was a kind of instinct!" With bitter resolve Reva used on him the same arguments and explanations she'd given herself for weeks after returning to the States. She had been caught up in a dangerous, primitive situation with a man who had
risked his life for her. It was only natural that she had responded to him when he'd made love to her in the darkness of that abandoned hut on the edge of the jungle.
"I'll go along with that," Josh grated deeply, turning toward the waterfront. "It was instinct. An instinct freed by the trauma of the situation and which can be freed again. Just because you've spent four months trying to pretend it didn't happen doesn't mean you won't still feel the same things tonight when I hold you again, Reva, honey."
Reva took a determined grip on her temper. "You're not going to spend the night with me, Josh. There's no going back to that night four months ago. It was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime situation which will never again be repeated. You and I are as opposite as it's possible for two human beings to be. Marriage between us or even an affair is something I can't possibly consider. You must understand that. You can take me home tonight and I'll even give you a cup of coffee or a nightcap, God knows I owe you that much, I suppose. But after that you'll leave. You'll have to leave. I have my own life to live and it would never in a million years be compatible with yours."
"What makes you so sure of that?" he asked with a half smile as he unerringly located the high-rise apartment building Reva called home and found a parking space on the street in front. He didn't seem overly concerned about the forcefulness of her arguments, merely curious, Reva thought in annoyance.
"I'm not a teen-ager, Josh. I'm aware of what it takes to make a good, lasting relationship. And it involves far more than lust! You . . . you obviously have a much different background from mine. You're at home carrying a rifle in a jungle. You can commit an act of violence and not wake up three nights later having nightmares. I was
in the middle of that mess in South America because I was an innocent tourist caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's not why you were there, is it, Josh?" she challenged.
"No," he agreed quietly, opening his door. "It's not why I was there." He closed the door firmly on any further comments she would have made on the subject. When he appeared on the other side of the car to help her out onto the street, he merely said, "We'll talk about that some other time. Come along and give me that nightcap you promised."
"You give me your word you won't be difficult when I ask you to leave?" she demanded as he walked her toward the entrance.
"I wouldn't think of being 'difficult,' " he told her dryly. "I've come home to marry you, little one, what's so difficult about that?" He folded an arm around her waist as they walked, anchoring her close to his side.
"Josh," Reva declared flatly, "I'm not going to let you come up to my apartment if you're going to ... to assault me!"
"Assault you!" He looked thunderstruck at the accusation, coming t
o a halt on the sidewalk and swinging her around to face him. "Look at me, Reva Waring! Do you really believe that after all we've shared together I'd ever hurt you? That I'd ever assault you?"
Reva, slightly astonished by his unexpected resentment of the warning, blinked uncertainly up into his stern features, saw the narrowed signs of offense in the lion eyes, and relented.
"I ... I didn't mean to imply," she began hesitantly, "that you would . . ."
"Rape you?" he concluded baldly, his anger very visible.
"Yes."
For a long moment he held her eyes and then, with a faint inclination of his dark head which acknowledged her poor apology, he turned to continue the walk to the apartment building.
"I would have been on your doorstep a few days ago," he told her as they entered the lobby. "Why in hell didn't you leave a forwarding address with the manager of your last apartment building? Did you really not believe I'd come for you?" He shook his head as if he simply couldn't comprehend her lack of faith in his promise.
Reva didn't look at him as she punched the elevator button. How could she say that the reason she'd left no address at the last place was because some small part of her had feared he would come?
"I've torn this town apart for four days looking for you, do you realize that?" Josh went on in an almost neutral tone as they stepped into the elevator. He reached out and lifted her chin between thumb and forefinger so that she had to meet his gaze. He was smiling with a strange kind of wonder. "But that's all over," he declared roughly. "I can forget all the little problems now that I've found you. I sure haven't slept worth a damn for the past few nights, though, knowing you were somewhere in the city and not being able to put my hands on you."
"How did you find my new address?" Reva asked in resignation. She should have guessed that just moving wouldn't slow him down much.
"I remembered your telling me that you work for a large manufacturing firm but you hadn't mentioned the name. I've spent a lot of time on the telephone during the past few days," he admitted as the elevator came to a halt. "When I finally did locate the right company there was some, uh, reluctance to give out your home address."