Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  From behind her, the surf she should have been leaving behind seemed to grow louder each second. She didn’t look back. She kept climbing.

  The water was ankle deep, and coming faster. Fighting up another twenty yards, her feet slid on the slick stones. She came down hard on her palms, but saved herself from going all the way down. The wind eased, and she straightened, dragging in air.

  A few more yards and she stumbled again. The water pulled at her, but she resisted. Against water now streaming past her mid-calf, she pushed on.

  The third time she went down, she knew she’d never make it. Not like this. Not all the way to the consulate.

  Fear crested over her. She pushed it back. Think, Jenner. Think. Panic’s the worst thing to do. Think, damn it!

  First, she had to find shelter. That was the only practical thing to do.

  Squinting against the rain, she caught a flash of movement. Someone else trying to find shelter? She pushed her hair back, but saw no sign of humanity. Not a person. Not a light. To her left, blue fabric that had once been an awning whipped and twisted in its death throes. The far side of the narrow street was a blur.

  To her right, a narrow indentation cut into the street. Movement. A door, swinging wide on its hinges. Perhaps it covered only another, sturdier door that would be locked, but maybe...

  She pushed off the wall and started toward the swinging door. Reaching it, she barely absorbed the fact that it opened into a dark space enclosed by plywood before she launched herself inside, then stood, hands on thighs, and gulped in air. Slowly she became aware of her shivering. Of the smell of mud. Of abandonment. And then of more... a presence. A faint sense of something else breathing in the space...

  Her head jerked up. Someone stood on the bottom step of a steep, rickety stairway.

  A man. Tall, with broad shoulders. That much she saw despite the shadowy gloom.

  He said something she didn’t understand, and spread his arms, palms out in an apparent gesture that he meant her no harm. She backed up. He stepped forward. She pivoted and bolted out the door. A gust of wind-driven rain slashed into her like innumerable knives.

  The next moment unfolded in slow motion.

  The man coming behind her, a glimpse of something above and to her left. The man diving at her, crushing her against a wooden wall. Seeing, around his shoulder, a huge earthenware urn with bits of flowers clinging to it, fly past and shatter in a spray of dirt and pottery on the spot where she had stood. Almost silently. The crash swallowed by the blast of wind that had propelled it off a rooftop garden.

  Then they were inside.

  The man released her and stepped back, but she felt the force of his grasp like an imprint on her skin.

  He spoke again, his breathing slightly labored. It sounded like the same thing he’d said before. Again with his hands open and in sight.

  “No me habla espanol.” She hoped that much translated to the island’s mutation of Spanish.

  “Ah,” he said. His hands dropped. She watched them every inch, but they hung there, innocently. Then a spate she didn’t understand, until, finally “American?”

  Some places were anti-American, but not Santa Estella. She nodded. “Yes. American.”

  He nodded back, and water dripped from a hunk of black hair over his forehead. His head and the bottom of his worn pants were nearly as wet as she was, but a dark green slicker protected the rest of him.

  “There you go.”

  Her spirits rose. “Oh. You speak English.”

  His rapid words flowed past her nearly as fast as the water in the street, ending with “There you go.”

  “There you go?” she repeated.

  He nodded. “There you go.”

  He didn’t speak English. He spoke “there you go.”

  He jerked his head toward the top of the stairs, retreated two steps, and gestured to her to follow.

  She shook her head. He might have saved her, he might not seem threatening, but she’d done her share of stories about murderers who looked like choirboys. Hell, she’d done a story where the murderer was a choirboy.

  With his hands out straight, he slowly raised them, then nodded to the door behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw water seeping over the sill and across the mud-packed floor. He was right. The water was going to rise.

  “On the other hand,” she muttered to herself, “sometimes a choirboy is really a choirboy.”

  She followed him up the stairs.

  * * *

  During the next, awkward, half hour the man prowled the cavernous second story of the unfinished building gathering items he apparently thought could be of use. He brought them back to where a pair of shoulder-high walls, one about ten feet long and the other six feet, met to form a protective corner. He indicated a closet-like structure to one side could be used as a sort of toilet, with his and hers chamber pots.

  Finally, they sat in the walled corner and shared their resources, hers from her bag, his from a backpack.

  Her bottle of water. His lantern flashlight. Her two cheese and crackers packets. His string bag of oranges. Her Swiss Army knife. His matches.

  All the while, the wind howled louder and the light grew dimmer.

  She shivered so hard her teeth clicked audibly. He interrupted his efforts to start a small fire in the bowl of a hubcap he’d found, using torn sheets from her notebook, scraps of wood and his damp matches, to give her a sharp look. With emphatic gestures he instructed her to change into the dry shirt and socks he drew from his backpack along with the flannel lining he detached from his slicker. She didn’t argue.

  Slipping behind the wall to change, she realized the ferocious wind drove the rain through the outer wall, creating a fine mist. But their refuge had the benefit of steel posts that apparently rose from the ground level and extended up beyond where she could see.

  Wrapping the slicker lining around her waist as a sarong to complete her outfit, she grabbed her wet things and returned to the protection of their corner.

  “Gracias.”

  He nodded. He’d taken off his holey shoes and laid them near the small fire, with the slicker spread nearby. She started to do the same with her clothes, when he said something in the island language and shook his head.

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  He stood, and took her slacks from her as she automatically backed away. He was tall, especially for an islander – some four inches taller than her five-seven – and broad-shouldered enough to block the light from the fire. He ignored her retreat, and wrapped powerful hands around the fabric, then twisted. The water wrung out splashed on the wooden floor between them.

  “Oh, I see. Yes.” She followed his example with her blouse.

  With her clothes at last laid out, the man gestured for her to go first through the narrow opening between the hubcap fire and the corner where he had set flattened cardboard boxes atop a long narrow cushion. She sat with her back to one wall and he rested against the other, with the fire at their feet.

  “I’m Kendra Jenner,” she told him.

  He looked at her, but said nothing. The firelight shifted shadow and stark brightness across a strongly-boned face. Pronounced cheekbones, sharp jaw, high forehead, all beneath thick, dark hair that waved despite being sleeked straight back.

  “Kendra,” she repeated with a hand to her chest.

  “Kendra.” He rolled the “r” and lingered over the final “a.” His extended fingers brushed the back of her hand. The unexpected contact fizzed at her taut-strung nerve-endings. “Kendra.”

  “Yes.”

  His large hand spread across the faded red cotton of his shirt. “Paulo Ayudor.”

  “How do you do, Paulo?” Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer. His eyes remained on her face. His eyes were dark, so dark their only color seemed to come from the tiny reflection of firelight. “I wonder what you were doing out on the streets of La Baja when Hurricane Aretha came to call?”

  “La Baja,” he repeat
ed. Then words she didn’t understand. But she sensed in them a faintly disapproving question, and a tilt of his head made her think he’d asked what she’d been doing there herself. He continued another stream of words in the island language. But one word caught her ear. It sounded like impetuouso.

  “I suppose it could appear impetuous. But I’d call it a calculated risk. Though, I’ll admit I don’t usually take chances like this.” She wasn’t sure if she meant chasing the story, pushing her luck with the storm or trusting him.

  He rubbed his hand twice across his eyes, then dropped it.

  She reached for her hairbrush from among the second pile of items she’d pulled from her purse. This larger pile of items her companion – Paulo – apparently didn’t think would aid them. Maybe a hairbrush wouldn’t help them survive, but it sure made her feel more human as she pulled it through her dripping hair.

  “I can’t shake this story. There’s something about this Taumaturgio. A man who comes out of nowhere to help the children. No one knows when he’s coming. No one knows who he is... Not that I’m starry-eyed about an unknown hero the way my cameraman kept saying. A breakthrough story could move me up a notch on the ladder. That would be another step toward financial security. Not having to ever rely on –” She bit off the words and set the brush down. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, since you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

  As she said the words, she knew that was precisely why she was telling him.

  A second reason for talking scratched along her nerves as the wind cried louder and something above them creaked a protest. One of her profs had drummed into her that a reporter who was talking wasn’t listening. For the first time, she realized breaking that rule had at least one potential benefit. Blocking out what she didn’t want to hear.

  “Anyway,” she went on, talking louder, “Taumaturgio’s the perfect breakthrough story. Sexy, daring, PC, mysterious. I could get great play – fantastic play – if I could find Taumaturgio.”

  Paulo watched her with concentrated interest.

  “What is it? What did I say?”

  He blinked, and his expression shifted to mild confusion. Maybe it had been a trick of the firelight.

  He rubbed his eyes again.

  “Taumaturgio? Do you know Taumaturgio?”

  His strong-boned face stayed blank. He shrugged.

  The movement reminded her of the power in his broad shoulders when he’d pushed her out of the way of the falling urn. She should remember that and keep her guard up. But it was hard when he’d helped her, she wore his clothes, they might share a fate –

  A crash shuddered in the distance, adding eerie emphasis to that thought.

  They had both instinctively looked in the direction of the noise. As she turned back, she met his eyes. Slashes of dark brows and those strong bones gave his face a strength softened only by the long, dark lashes framing his deep-set eyes.

  “I trust you.” The wind’s moaning nearly drowned her words. She tried to laugh. It came out rusty. “Lord, I sound like my mother. And I haven’t done that often.”

  A guttural groan of wind-tortured wood came from above them. She jerked her head back and stared up. But beyond the sphere of their tiny fire stretched a void. A swirling, damp, dark void spattered with moans instead of stars.

  Was it night? She didn’t know. She checked her wrist. Her watch had stopped at 4:38 – minutes after leaving Senora Valeria’s.

  She masked a shiver by shifting position on the cardboard-covered mattress.

  “Mother,” he said, condensing the “th” into a harder sound.

  Kendra wasn’t sure if he meant to remind her of what she’d been saying or was trying to make sense of the word. “Mother. Madre,” she translated.

  “Ah, si. Madre.” His pronunciation gave it a twist she couldn’t describe, but she recognized the word. He smiled. He had straight, white teeth, unlike so many islanders. He also had a smile that shifted sharp planes into lines of warm pleasure.

  “Yes. Mi madre.” She sighed. “She would have loved you – she loved most men. Looked up at them with her big blue eyes and trusted every man she met after my father died to take care of her the way he had. And man after man took advantage of her, while she thought she could hide behind their broad shoulders.”

  Broad shoulders... She had hidden behind broad shoulders. His. From a hurricane she’d walked right into.

  Aretha. The banshee clawing at their shelter with breath and voice. This time Kendra didn’t hide her shiver.

  She pushed herself to keep talking, so she wouldn’t listen.

  “But these are unusual circumstances.”

  His dark eyes held so much intelligence that for a moment she wished he could understand her. Only then she wouldn’t have told him any of this.

  She extended her hand. “Friends?”

  His gaze slowly shifted to her hand. He repeated her word, then said another resembling amigo.

  “Amigos.” She nodded. “Friends.”

  He stretched his arm across the space between them and put his palm to hers for an instant before curling his long fingers around her hand. She hadn’t known how cold her hand was until the warmth of his surrounded it. A hand to hold on to while the dark world screamed around them.

  She shook his hand more emphatically than she’d intended, while trying not to feel too grateful for the warmth. When she tried to withdraw her hand, he held on. Not tight, but securely. She glanced up as she again exerted a slight pressure to withdraw her hand. They were still looking at each other and he was still holding her hand when the roof fell in.

  * * *

  He used his hold on her hand to jerk her toward him, and underneath him. Crammed into the corner of the two interior walls, his body sheltered her. She knew she screamed. His shoulder muffled the sound. The impact of debris pounding against his back transferred to her, echoing in her bones.

  Waiting for the final, crushing blow.

  Would they die?

  She might have passed out. Time slid sideways into uncertain territory. When time righted itself, she became aware of a difference. A change.

  Silence.

  Silence.

  No moaning wind. No howling rain. No screaming storm.

  But also no movement from Paulo.

  Oh, God. Please. Oh, God.

  She worked one hand free from between their bodies, but couldn’t get her fingers to where she thought there would be a pulse. She shifted more strongly, spreading her hand wide, reaching for a reassuring flutter.

  “Kendra.”

  Paulo had said her name. He was alive. She could feel his heartbeat, pushing his blood through his veins.

  He murmured something else, which sounded almost as if he asked if she was okay. But he couldn’t have asked it in words she would understand.

  “Paulo.”

  He raised his head. She couldn’t see his face; the fire must have been smothered, the lantern destroyed. But now she could hear his voice, and knew he spoke in the island tongue, rising at the end in interrogation.

  “I’m okay. Are you hurt?”

  He said something else that sounded somehow reassuring.

  He carefully raised his upper body, balancing on one arm above her while he started to clear debris with a cautious hand. Their lower bodies were pressed together, their legs entwined.

  She should have been embarrassed, uneasy. She wasn’t. She lay there, aware only of a lung-filling gratefulness for the reality of his weight and warmth against her.

  They were alive.

  When he had cleared enough space to lift off her, she forced herself to sit up, to take in their situation.

  She brushed bits of wood, mud, shingles and jagged hunks of wallboard off the cushion while Paulo patiently restarted the fire.

  The quiet pressed around them like a heavy blanket, cutting off the world as completely as the noise had. The eye of the storm. With the second half soon to start battering at them as harshly as th
e first half. And that would bring the storm surge, a hurricane’s deadly swell of water.

  But for this moment, they were alive.

  “Well, at least we have plenty of kindling,” Kendra muttered, tossing a piece of wood onto the meager flame.

  Paulo turned then, his mouth starting to lift in a smile. His expression froze at the same instant she gasped. A jagged fragment of wood, as long as a pen but three times as big around jutted from the skin in front of his ear. Amid all the other stings and blows his body had taken, he must not have felt it until he started to smile, shifting those muscles.

  “No.” She grabbed the hand he started toward it. “You might drive it deeper. I’ll do it. Here –”

  She knelt in front of him, gesturing for him to turn toward her. He slid one long leg past her and bent the other, bringing his knee by her hip.

  “Tip your head so I can see better.”

  He stared at her. She put her fingertips to either side of his stubble-bristling jaw to turn and tip his head toward the firelight. As his head moved, his eyes never left her face.

  In the flickering light she saw the spine of wood running under the skin for two inches. If she could slide it out, carefully, without leaving fragments... But that would mean doing it slowly and that would hurt more.

  “This is going to hurt.” Her eyes met his for an instant, then skidded away. She put one hand along his jaw below the wound, thinking to hold him still if he jerked.

  “Kendra.”

  Her name was followed by a flow of soft words. She met his eyes again and knew he reassured her. Her breath came out in a rush. He touched the back of her bracing hand lightly, and she knew he’d sworn to hold still.

  Drawing in a steadier breath, she shifted her hand to feel the point of the shard, just under his skin. Biting her lip hard enough that the moisture in her eyes might have been from pain, she started drawing the wood up and out.

  The first inch she feared her hands would shake. The second inch she feared she would pass out.

  He never moved, never made a sound.