The Marriage Trap

by Anne McAllister

  Courtney shuddered.

  ‘Forget it,’ Aidan said gruffly. ‘It’s over.’

  But it wasn’t easy to forget. The farther they went upstream in the darkness, the more likely it seemed to Courtney that Deke or Sonny or Jose might be lurking behind any tree. And whenever Aidan moved to tie the boat again for the night, she said, ‘Do we have to?’ Finally he said, ‘Yes, damn it, we do,’ and proceeded to tie up at the next likely-looking spot. ‘Come on.’

  Courtney gritted her teeth and did what he told her, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t let him out of her sight, nor the gun either.

  ‘They aren’t anywhere close, for heaven’s sake,’ Aidan growled at her when she jumped a foot after a family of monkeys crashed through the tree branches overhead.

  ‘Who knows what might be out there?’ Courtney asked darkly.

  ‘Not me,’ Aidan said easily. ‘But I’ll bet you won’t invite it home for dinner next time.’

  ‘I didn’t really mean to invite them. I just thought we’d have less… less… well, I thought…’

  He looked at her narrowly. ‘Yes? What did you think?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she muttered.

  He caught her arm when she tried to pull away from him. ‘What did you think, Courtney?’

  ‘I thought things might be a little less tense if we had company,’ she snapped, irritated.

  His mouth twisted into a grin. ‘Not quite.’

  ‘No. But how was I supposed to know they were the outlaws?’

  ‘With names like Deke and Sonny? What’d you think they were? Rhodes scholars on an anthropology expedition, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I don’t judge people by their names,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘You don’t judge people well at all.’

  She just looked at him unable to even answer that. He dropped her arm and raked his hands through his hair. ‘Oh, hell, I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Come on. We might still be able to catch a bit of sleep tonight.’

  He had managed to bring along the hammocks, thank heavens. If he hadn’t, they would have been forced to sleep in the boat. But he hadn’t brought much else, not wanting to hang around Sonny and Jose while Deke still had her. Something else she owed him for, she thought glumly. Her honour, her happiness, and now, her life.

  He rigged the hammocks in silence. Courtney helped where she could, but he seemed intent on doing it himself, and she thought, under the circumstances, the less she said at this point, the better. Finally he jerked the last rope and turned around.

  ‘There. That should do you. All right?’

  She nodded, then mumbled yes, afraid he couldn’t see her bob her head in the darkness. She wanted to run to him, throw her arms around him, hug the life out of him and feel his strong arms around her, delirious with joy that he was safe and not lying dead of a knife wound back in the jungle somewhere. She said instead, ‘Can I get you something to eat?’

  She saw a grin glint in the moonlight. ‘Dinner at last, you mean?’

  She shuddered involuntarily.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. ‘I couldn’t eat anyway. I’m bushed.’ And with that he tipped back into his hammock. She heard it creak as his weight made it swing.

  She couldn’t eat anything either. Nor did she think she would be able to sleep. But she lay down anyway and stared up into the jungle canopy overhead. It was no different from last night, and it made Deke and Sonny and Jose seem like nothing more than a bad dream. But then she remembered the crawling fear, the glint of the knives, and she broke out in a cold sweat all over again.

  At least they didn’t kill us, she reminded herself. And Aidan even got the money back. Not that it mattered terribly.

  But he didn’t get the ring. She sighed, the fingers of her right hand moving to caress the bare ring finger on her left. She felt the slight indentation on the underside where the tape had pressed. Her throat grew tight and her eyes blurred, but she swallowed her tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Aidan’s voice broke the stillness, letting her know she hadn’t been as discreet as she had hoped.

  She sniffled. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘About… them?’

  ‘Not them exactly.’

  ‘They won’t be back,’ he promised.

  ‘No. I wasn’t worried about that.’

  ‘What then?’

  She sighed. ‘I was… was thinking about… the ring.’ She imagined he would tell her she was stupid, they were lucky to get away with their lives.

  He didn’t say a word.

  ‘We were lucky to get away with our lives,’ she said for him.

  ‘Yeah.’ His voice was low. She heard him shift uneasily in his hammock. She wanted to go to him desperately, wanted to hold him and have him hold her. But she couldn’t. How could she ask him to do more than he had already done?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

  ‘Me, too,’ she thought he muttered. Then she heard the tree creak again, and all was quiet.

  She woke some time past midnight. The barest sliver of moonlight enabled her only to pick out the closest trees and vines as she separated greys from blacks. She was surprised she had slept at all. But maybe their close call having been just that—close and nothing worse—had given her body a sense of relief that resolved itself in sheer exhaustion. In any case, she murmured yet another prayer of thanksgiving that they had come through their last scrape intact, then yawned, stretched and rolled over.

  To discover she was alone.

  She jerked to a sitting position and reached out a hand, groping for Aidan, disbelieving. But the faint white of his empty hammock was all there was. Her head whipped around, seeking him out.

  ‘Aidan?’ Her voice was rough with sleep and fear.

  No answer came.

  ‘Aidan?’ Sharper now. Panic setting in.

  She lurched out of the hammock, hitting the damp ground with a squish, then she scrambled towards the river, calling his name. Aidan didn’t answer. And at the riverbank she discovered why.

  The boat was gone, too.

  ‘Aidan?’ This time it was no more than a whisper, the breath gone right out of her. She was trembling so badly she had to grab a tree to keep from falling in, for there was no other conclusion to come to—Aidan had left her.

  She slumped to the ground, shaking in disbelief, confused, frightened. Gone. How could he have gone? Where could he have gone? And why? The questions tumbled around in her head, each more baffling than the last. And for none could she find an answer. Finally she stumbled back to her hammock and crawled in. There was nothing else she could do until morning came at least.

  And then?

  Then she wasn’t even sure.

  She didn’t sleep, just huddled there, trembling. Every wuffling in the brush, every scamper overhead magnified. And none of them Aidan.

  The first grey light of dawn was just beginning to draw sharper distinctions between the trees and the sky when she heard footsteps.

  It could be Deke. Or Sonny. It could be one of the Indians from the tribe they had first visited. It might even be the one she most wanted to avoid. She didn’t care. Didn’t even bother to feign sleep. She jerked upright and stared wide-eyed, heart pounding.

  ‘Aidan!’

  He stumbled into the tiny campsite, grabbing on to the tree at the foot of her hammock for support.

  ‘What happened? What’s wrong? Where were you?’ The questions tumbled out. She fairly flew at him, rage and worry commingling.

  He didn’t speak, just held out his hand. When she held out hers to meet it, he dropped something into it.

  ‘My ring.’

  She didn’t even have to see it. She could feel the warmth in the gold from the heat of his hand. The tape stuck to her palm. Her eyes flew to his face. ‘You went after my ring?’

  He shrugged. ‘It was your father’s.’

  ‘To hell with my father,’ she shouted, horrified at what he had risked. ‘You cou
ld have been killed.’

  He slumped heavily into the hammock she had just vacated. ‘I wasn’t.’

  But he didn’t look far from it. The grey light made his pallor terrible. Lack of sleep? Fear? She didn’t know what it was. She only knew he was back. And she wanted to kill him at the same time as she wanted to rejoice. ‘How could you? What did you do?’

  ‘I went back.’

  ‘They were still there?’

  ‘Of course. You didn’t think they’d go anywhere, did you? We took their paddles. Besides, it was getting dark when we split. And they certainly didn’t think they were likely to be robbed.’ He grinned almost painfully. ‘I surprised them.’

  ‘You terrified me.’

  ‘Sorry. I thought you’d be glad.’

  ‘If you got yourself killed?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about an annulment then.’ He tried it as a joke, but she couldn’t smile. The thought was too horrible.

  ‘You must be exhausted.’ She started to fuss over him then, babbling in her relief. And that was when she saw the dark seeping stain on his shirt.

  ‘My God.’

  ‘What?’ He peered at her fuzzily.

  ‘What happened?’ She was tearing at the buttons of his shirt now, practically ripping them off.

  He glanced down dispassionately, as if it were someone else bleeding like a stuck pig. ‘Sonny got a little careless with his knife.’

  ‘I thought you got his knife.’ The wound was long and nasty, below his ribs and to one side.

  ‘He took it back.’

  She shuddered. ‘You’re an idiot to have taken the chance.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Well, really…’ She was almost crying now. How could he have done something that stupid? And for a ring? Did he think she wanted the ring and not him?

  ‘It’ll be all right. I’ve just got to bind it.’

  ‘It should be stitched.’

  He gave her a baleful look. ‘Do you sew?’

  ‘If I have to.’

  ‘Wait until it’s light then,’ was all he said. Then his eyes closed, and while she bound the wound as tightly as she could with one of his undershirts, he fell asleep.

  They didn’t have much cachaga left. But what they did have, she made him drink before she sewed his wound. He made a face while he drank it. At six in the morning, it wasn’t the best tonic in the world. But she was glad they had something, for all the time she was sewing him up, she could feel his muscles clenching.

  She did it while he was lying in the hammock and she was straddling him. She tried it first sitting to one side. But every time he flinched, the hammock swayed away. In the end, she lowered the other hammock and moved him over there, then clambered over him so that she straddled his thighs. With one of her feet firmly on the ground on either side of him, even if he flinched, he still couldn’t sway away.

  It worked. But when she was done and looked at his face, she was aghast to see it clenched and white from pain, sweat on his brow and a thin line of unshed tears under his lashes.

  She wanted to cry too, wanted to comfort him, and when she said, ‘Finished,’ he breathed again and sighed, then reached for her and pulled her down against his chest.

  She went willingly, wanting it—wanting him. ‘Oh, Aidan, my God, how could you? It was only a ring.’ His arms tightened around her, hugging her fiercely, and her feet slipped off the ground as she pressed into him, warm and secure in his arms, exactly where she wanted to be. It was like coming home. She knew she had been missing the comfort of his closeness ever since they had left her parents, but only now did she realise how much. And how much she loved him.

  He could have died. And for what? The tears which she had kept at bay all the time he was gone, the ones she had swallowed all the time she had been stitching him up, putting on a brave front so that she could get through it, poured down her cheeks now, dampening his neck and shoulders.

  ‘Hey,’ he murmured. ‘Hey. It’s all right. I’m OK. I’m fine.’ But his hands trembled as they stroked her back. And after a long moment during which she could feel him straining for the control he had mastered so long, he suddenly let go and began to kiss her hair.

  She returned the kisses, feathering them along the side of his neck, then along the line of his jaw. She lifted herself away from him to balance again on her toes, threading her fingers in the thick brown hair at his temples, smoothing the taut skin over his cheekbones with her thumbs. His own hands tugged the shirt-tails out of her trousers, then slipped underneath, callused fingers setting satiny skin on fire wherever they roamed.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he muttered. ‘So soft. So sweet.’ He fumbled with the buttons, then succeeded in releasing them, and eased the shirt off her. His hands came up to cup her breasts, freeing them from the scrap of lace that was her bra, and letting them spill softly into his hands.

  She shivered, then burned. His touch was magical, sending the blood pounding through her veins, making them sing and throb as the aching need to be one with him exploded inside her.

  Aidan’s own need pressed against her, hot and hard where she straddled his body. And as his hands stroked her breasts, his hips lifted against her, speaking to her of his desire. She responded, bending to kiss him at the same time as her hands played down over his shoulders, then danced lightly through the hair on his chest, circling his nipples, making him shiver. She smiled, loving the way she could make him respond. Loving him.

  His hands dropped from her breasts, going to the snap of her khaki trousers. The brush of the backs of his fingers against her stomach made her muscles quiver. He stopped.

  Lifting his eyes to meet her, he asked for the world in one word. ‘Courtney?’

  She smiled and gave it to him. ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Courtney discovered then that she wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing. Just as he was willing to risk everything for what he believed in, so was she. And what she believed in was the power of love.

  Whatever Aidan felt for her—and she couldn’t pretend to know what that was—she loved him. And she needed to show him that love, needed to share it with him, needed to show with her actions the real commitment she felt to this man who was her husband.

  And so she gave him her love.

  She said ‘Yes’ again, then bent her head and pressed her lips against his, which opened hungrily for her questing tongue. He groaned softly, his fingers moving against her belly, working loose the fastener of her trousers and drawing down the zipper. Then his hands slid over her hips, pushing the khaki fabric down and off her legs which had come up alongside his in the hammock.

  Her clothing dispensed of, he quickly set about removing his own. But she felt him wince as he bent forward to remove his own trousers, and she moved to help him. In seconds they were together again, naked now, their bodies trembling in need, aching for the closeness that had been denied them so long.

  Aidan’s fingers stroked her breasts, then caressed her ribs and smoothed across the soft skin of her abdomen, moving downwards towards the centre of her desire. One of his legs thrust between hers and his hand followed it, seeking her, finding her, and now it was her turn to moan softly as he stoked the fires that burned inside her.

  ‘Please, Aidan!’ She moved against him and felt him stiffen.

  ‘I need you,’ he muttered. ‘I need you now!’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes.’ And she guided him home. Feeling at home herself, as if everything else she had seen and done in her life lost significance when measured against the rightness of what was happening this very moment.

  She felt the urgent thrust of his hips against her and began to move with him, feeling the same need building deep within herself that she saw in the taut passion of Aidan’s face. He twisted beneath her as she stroked down eagerly. The waves of climax broke over them, first Aidan and a split second later herself. Then she slumped against his chest, spent, depleted, exhausted, and whole at last.

  Aidan�
��s hand came up and brushed against her hair softly and slowly. Then he sighed and the stroking stopped. His hand lay limp against her back, and under her ear she could hear the gradual deceleration of his galloping heart.

  She lifted her head off his sweat-slick shoulder and looked down at his face. His eyes were shut, the taut lines that so often furrowed his forehead and scored between his nose and mouth were softened. The passion gone, replaced by peace. He slept.

  Courtney dropped her head and left a gentle kiss in the middle of his chest. Then she settled herself against him, careful that she wasn’t touching the stitched and bandaged wound. Then she, too, slept.

  She awoke less than an hour later to find herself hugged firmly against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, his breath teasing her hair. With extreme care she eased herself up and away from him.

  She didn’t wake him, though it was light enough now to travel. There was no rush. Not now. The only thing she had to get back for at all was to see that Uncle Leander and the bank got that letter from her father. And that could wait a few more hours at least. It could wait days if it had to. In fact, she realised with a smile, she could send it by post and not go back at all.

  Edging out of the hammock without making it swing an undue amount, she knew that that was what she wanted most of all. She wanted to stay with Aidan. For ever.

  And what did Aidan want?

  Well, he wanted her. Or at least he had given a very good impression of it.

  But did he want her enough to stay married to her?

  That she didn’t know.

  She knew that life didn’t come without risks, however. And she knew that she had just taken the biggest risk in her life. Compared to loving Aidan, being thrust ahead of everyone else when they entered a new village was nothing. Then she could have been killed, of course. But it would have been over in minutes. This way she could die slowly of a broken heart.

  She wanted a lifetime with Aidan. She wanted love, children, a home, a future. And she didn’t know if he felt the same way at all. He had got her back her ring, of course, she reminded herself, twisting it now on her finger, loving him for getting it at the same time as she hated him for having risked his life. But what did that mean?