by Janet Dailey
“It’s not that you can’t! You won’t” she accused in an emotion-choked voice.
“Think what you like,” he replied grimly.
“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” Samantha assured him in a threatening tone.
She stood before him, her hands balled into fists at her side, tears trembling on the ends of her lashes. This was not the way she had intended to confront him. She had planned to interrogate him mercilessly, convicting him with the facts she already knew.
But somewhere along the way, she had stopped thinking of him as her captor and began looking at him as the man who had kissed her passionately and introduced her to feelings and sensations she hadn’t known she possessed.
Beware of the stranger, she thought brokenly, because he can steal your heart.
“I want your word, Sam, that you won’t try to use the telephone again.”
He regarded her steadily.
“My word?” she mocked. “Why should I give you my word?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll be forced to cut the telephone line. I can’t take the risk of your phoning anyone and letting them know you’re here.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to lock me in my room?” Samantha challenged, her voice taut with misery.
“I hope it won’t come to that.” But his answer was a warning. “It’s up to you.”
Her freedom was limited, but she had to keep what little she had if she was going to have any chance at all to help herself.
“Very well, you have it.” She had to give in and he had known it.
Pivoting on her heel, she voluntarily went to her room to think of another plan. A glance over her shoulder saw him standing in the same place watching her, his dark features hard and unyielding, and compellingly attractive.
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Chapter Seven
THE WATERS of the St. Lawrence were renowned for their fishing, with black bass and the battling muskie leading the list. Samantha had been watching the small fishing craft moving closer to the island for the past fifteen minutes. Its engine was put-putting in an erratic rhythm that suggested difficulties.
Stretched out on the raft anchored in the cove, she had toyed with the idea of swimming out to the boat. It was easily within her swimming range, but she knew she would not get ten feet before Jonas caught her. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw he was watching the boat as intently as she was.
Since yesterday afternoon they had spoken little, exchanging only necessary remarks. He was her enemy, and Samantha couldn’t allow her emotions to come into play.
The bow of the fishing boat swung to point toward the cove. Within seconds the sputtering motor died. His gaze sliced to her, a veiled warning in its narrowed gray depths, before it moved on to the stockily built man standing at the boathouse dock and watching the fishing boat.
“Find out what his trouble is, Tom,” Jonas ordered, his low voice carrying crisply across the dividing waters. “And get him out of here right away.”
With a curt nod, Tom acknowledged the order. The fisherman stood up in his boat and waved toward shore. Jonas deliberately ignored the man’s hailing. It was Tom who returned it before disappearing into the boathouse. A few minutes later he emerged, manning the oars of a dinghy, and rowed toward the disabled boat.
Propped by an elbow on her side, Samantha watched as Tom reached the boat, talked briefly with the man, then began rowing back. He never glanced toward the raft, but his voice was directed quietly to Jonas when he drew level with it.
“He ran out of gas.”
A red gasoline can was in the dinghy when Tom started his second trip to the fishing boat. Frustration curled Samantha’s fingernails into her palms. She could see her chance to contact someone from the outside world slipping away. She had to do something to get the fisherman’s attention. There might not be another opportunity.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Sam,” his quiet steel voice warned.
Irritation snapped in her brown eyes at the way he had so perceptively guessed the direction of her thoughts. The wintry gray of his eyes didn’t cool her determination. With lightning decision, she pressed her hands onto the raft boards to push herself right, but she never completed the motion.
His reaction was swifter, rolling sideways from his sitting position to grip her shoulders and pin them to the hard wood decking. He loomed above her, muscular and bronze, a dark cloud of hairs curling virilely on his naked chest, The thumping of her heart had no basis in fear.
“Don’t,” he ordered. “Just keep quiet.”
“You can’t expect me to obey you,” she hissed. “You know I have to try.”
“Your screams won’t mean anything. He’ll think it’s some joke,” Jonas argued, a ruthless set to his hard features.
“He won’t think it’s a joke when I tell him who I am,” Samantha retorted, and opened her mouth to scream.
His large hand closed over her jaw, holding it while he smothered her cry with the silencing force of his punishing kiss. The burning possession of his mouth flamed like wildfire through her veins, sweetly savage and torturously mad.
His demand for submission had her reeling light-headedly.
The full weight of his muscular body spread over her, its heat melting her bones. Although Samantha tried to resist, her toothpick defenses scattered seconds after he had claimed her lips. Pliant and responsive, she acceded to the urgent pressure of his kiss, completely forgetting that she was consorting with the enemy until she heard the reviving chug of the fishing boat’s motor.
Samantha twisted free of the male lips in time to see the fisherman wave to Tom and turn the boat in the opposite direction of the island, gathering speed as it left.
“No!” She moaned brokenly, staring at the boat’s wake.
Jonas released her and levered himself away, leaving her flesh chilled where it had felt his warmth. Sickened by the way she had been unable to deny herself the heady pleasure of his kiss, she rested a hand across her eyes, as if shutting out the sight of him would hide the forbidden love she felt growing.
“Did you have to kiss me?” she hurled at him resentfully. “Or is it just a habit with you to maul your prisoners?”
“Believe me, if there’d been a more effective means to shut you up I would have used it.” His tone was bitingly sardonic.
The stinging flick of his reply was just what Samantha needed to pull herself out of her misery. Rising to stand upright on trembling legs, she squarely met the wintry glitter of his gaze. Kissing him had been an ordeal for her, too, but one of an entirely different kind.
“In the future, please find another method,” she declared, faintly haughty and very proud.
With animal grace he glided to his feet, the coiled alertness of a predator about him, the angry glint in his eye decidedly primitive. His superior height almost made Samantha feel dwarfed as he stood before her nearly naked, muscles rippling toast brown in the sun.
“Don’t worry, Sam. I’ll look for one,” Jonas snapped.
“And don’t call me Sam,” she flashed. “That’s reserved for people I like and trust!”
For several charged seconds the tension mounted as they glared at each other. The hard line of his mouth thinned ominously.
“It’s time we went back to the house,” he said finally.
“I’ll bet you’re sorry you didn’t decide to lock me in my room,” Samantha accused bitterly.
“I wouldn’t bring it up if I were you. The idea is acquiring more merit every day,” he warned.
She clamped her mouth shut. This was not the time to bait him or he might decide to carry out his threat. She had lost one opportunity to obtain help this afternoon. She would be a fool to throw away the chance to have more opportunities simply because she wanted to lash out and hurt him, trying to divert some of her pain to him. Swallowing her spiteful words, she turned and dived into the water. Jonas followed when she surfaced a few yards from the raft.
In
the solitude of her room, Samantha relived the scene on the raft. The feeling of wretchedness returned at her failure to resist him and her failure to identify herself in some way to the fisherman. In the midst of her dejection came a glimmer of hope.
Escape from the island had always seemed impossible. The only means of transportation was by boat, and Samantha knew she would never be able to operate the sailboat. It was too large. Swimming to another island or the mainland was out because she had not the strength nor the endurance to cover the distance.
Today, another means of transportation had unknowingly been revealed to her. It was the dinghy that Tom had rowed to the fishing boat. One opportunity had been denied her and another had taken its place. It was up to her to make use of it.
The trick would be to leave without being seen. She not only had to get out of the house, but also make it to the boathouse and row away from the island unobserved. Broad daylight was ruled out. Supposing that she made it to the boat, there was the risk of her being seen on the river in the dinghy, and it would be too easy for Jonas to overtake her in the sailboat. If she was caught, Samantha had no doubt that she would be locked in her room after that.
Any attempt would have to be made in the middle of the night when the darkness could hide her, both on the island and on the water. She had slipped out once unseen, maybe she could succeed again. But this time she wouldn’t walk boldly out of the door. Leaving the house would demand furtive action.
She walked to her bedroom window. The trees grew close to the house on this side of the building. There was only a narrow clearing that she would have to cross before reaching the concealing cover of the trees. From there, she would have to work her way as quietly as possible to the boathouse path.
It would not be easy with all the thick undergrowth rustling beneath her feet and against her legs. And she would have to be careful not to lose her direction in the dark. A flashlight was out of the question to guide her footsteps.
The glass portion of the window would be raised, but the protective screen was a problem. It was secured from the outside, which meant Samantha would have to pry the wire screen free of its wooden frame. The only tools she had to use, if they could be called tools, were in her manicure set. It was a case of making do with what was at hand as she set to work on a loosened corner of the screen.
By the time she had an opening large enough to crawl through, she had only a few minutes to change out of the swimsuit that had dried on her and into some clothes for dinner. Excitement for her daring plan had built up. Suppressing it was difficult, but she couldn’t risk Jonas suspecting her.
During the meal, she said little, letting Tom, Maggie and Jonas carry the conversation. She was aware of the frequency with which the gray eyes regarded her, and she could only hope that he interpreted her silence as being sullen. All the while she kept going over in her mind the route of her escape.
When Maggie began clearing the dishes from the table and Tom had left to look around outside, Samantha wished she could retreat to her room. But it was too soon, so she wandered into the living room.
“You don’t have to keep me company,” she informed Jonas acidly when he followed her into the living room. “There aren’t any fishermen around.”
He ignored her comment and lowered his tall frame into a leather chair opposite the one Samantha had chosen. Trying to conceal her irritation, she picked up a magazine and flipped indifferently through the pages.
“You’ve been very quiet tonight,” he observed.
Samantha closed the magazine abruptly and tossed it on the side table. “Under the circumstances, you can hardly expect me to make scintillating conversation.”
The line of his mouth curved, a movement totally lacking humor. “What scheme is running through your mind?”
“Scheme?” Although she tried to sound blank, Samantha realized the color had drained from her face, indicating the accuracy of his perception. She tried to conceal her escape plans in a false candor. “The only thing going through my mind right now is how can I get off this island prison of yours. And failing that, I’m trying to figure out how I can let others know where I am.”
He shook a cigarette from his pack and offered it to her. She accepted, bending her head to the match flame in his hand. “Come up with any ideas?” Jonas inquired with the infuriating calm of a man confident that all possibilities had been covered.
Exhaling an impatient cloud of smoke, Samantha seized the first thought that occurred to her. “Yes, one.”
“What’s that?” A dark brow quirked mockingly in her direction.
“I’ve been considering burning the house down,” she announced. “You have to admit that it isn’t something that could be ignored. There would be people crawling all over this island within minutes of the first flame licking the roof.”
“There would still be plenty of time for Tom and me to get you onto the sailboat and away from the island before the first person arrived,” Jonas pointed out. “So it won’t do you any good to play with matches.”
“I know,” sighed Samantha. For an instant, the spur of the moment idea had sounded possible.
“Surely you’ve had some other ideas,” he prompted dryly.
“Well —” for the first time in several days, an impish gleam entered her eye as she remembered one of her more ridiculous thoughts “ — I did consider getting a light and flashing a Morse code signal to any ships or boats going by the island.”
“What stopped you?”
“I don’t know Morse code,” she answered ruefully. At his low chuckle, she regretted her lapse. It was hard enough to resist him without putting things on a lighter level. A grim resolve entered her voice when she spoke. “I’ll think of something, though.”
The cigarette was discarded, half-smoked, in the ashtray. The chair was too comfortable, inviting relaxation. Samantha pushed out of the chair, walking nervously to the fireplace, empty and blackened.
“Sam, I —” Jonas began quietly, a thread of solemnity running through his tone.
“I told you I don’t want you to call me that.” She kept her back to him, looking sideways from her shoulder yet not allowing his craggy features to enter her vision. “The only thing I want from you is to leave this island.”
“It isn’t possible for you to leave. Not yet,” he added stiffly.
“When?” demanded Samantha, doubting that he would ever let her leave.
He took a long time answering her and she turned slightly to see him. He was studying the smoke curling from the burning tip of his cigarette.
“When?” she repeated.
“I hope not much longer.” His veiled look never left the cigarette.
What did he mean? Had arrangements been made by her father to pay the ransom? It seemed to be what his comment meant.
“Have you … have you talked to Reuben?” she asked, holding her breath.
“For a few minutes this afternoon,” he admitted.
“What did he say?” she rushed.
His gaze flicked to her briefly, emotionless and aloof. “As I said before, it shouldn’t be too much longer before you can leave here,” he replied, not answering her question except in the most ambiguous terms.
“How long is not much longer?” Samantha persisted in her search for the time when the ransom was to be paid.
“Let’s just leave it that it will be a little while yet,” Jonas stated. “Then all this will be all over.”
And I’ll never see you again. The thought brought a sharp pain to the area of her heart. She turned away from him, knowing his image would haunt her for a long time. The mantel clock ticked in the silence for several minutes.
“I think I’ll go to my room,” she said finally. There was no point in staying there.
“Good night,” Jonas offered when she stepped into the hall.
“’Yes.” Samantha hesitated. If everything went according to plan she would not see him again. Her gaze slid over him, masculine and vital. “Go
odbye” hovered on the tip of her tongue. “Good night,” was what she uttered.
There was not nearly the elation she had anticipated when she reached her room. She changed into her night clothes and laid out jeans and a dark blue pullover. Then she climbed into bed to wait for the house to become silent.
She knew there was no risk that she would fall asleep. There were too many things to think about and leaving Jonas was one of them. But that was the way it had to be. She simply couldn’t trust him.
The luminous dial of the clock on her bedside table indicated the hour as one. There hadn’t been a sound anywhere in the house for the past two hours. Samantha guessed that Tom was somewhere outside on watch since she hadn’t heard anything to indicate his return. As she slid silently from beneath the covers, she crossed her fingers that he wasn’t near the boathouse.
Dressed in the dark clothing that would help her to blend with the night’s shadows, Samantha returned to the bed and stuffed the pillows beneath the covers to form the mock shape of a sleeping figure. The pale moonlight streaming through the window illuminated her handiwork without revealing its falseness.
With a last glance at the bed she tiptoed to the window. It squeaked protestingly as she raised the glass frame higher. She stopped, listening intently as her pulse throbbed in her throat. Deciding no one had heard, she pushed out the corner of the screen she had worked free. At almost the same moment she heard quiet footsteps muffled by the carpet outside in the corridor.
There was only one reason anyone would be moving about at this hour, and it was to check on her. There wasn’t time to slip out through the window.
The opening was small and she might get caught on the screen wire. And she would never have time to slip under the covers and return the pillows to their proper position before the door opened. She had to hide, and somewhere close.
The cool breeze blowing through the window billowed the drape beside her. Instantly Samantha stepped behind the hanging material, lightly gripping the edges so the breeze wouldn’t accidentally reveal her. She had barely slipped behind them when the door opened. The light from the hallway streamed over the bed and she held her breath. She guessed it was Jonas. If he walked to the bed, he would discover her ruse, and she would never be able to escape then.