by Ruth Owen
“I’m sorry we fought,” she repeated, her words slow and almost mechanically deliberate. “It was all my fault. I want you to continue as my guide. Let’s forget it ever happened.”
His arm fell like a stone to his side. Good Lord, she’d apologized. He’d never have believed it if he hadn’t heard it with his own ears. Hell, he didn’t believe it now.
He started slowly back down the road, his hunter’s steps making no sound on the road. As he rounded the outcropping he saw that she’d left the Jeep, and was kneeling beside a yellow-flowered shrub growing near the base of the cliff. Her slim, slight body looked so helpless against the weathered, unforgiving rock face, like a china cup just waiting to be broken. He remembered his earlier fear, and stiffened as an almost violent urge to protect her surged through him. This is nuts. I don’t care about her. I don’t even like her.
His step faltered, skittering a few pebbles over the side of the road. Her head shot up at the sound. Their gazes locked, and for an instant he was back in the church, staring into the depths of a woman whose soul was as deep as the sea. Then she rose hastily to her feet, wiping off the road dust with a self-conscious awkwardness that was completely at odds with her usual composed demeanor. “I was just checking out this plant. I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s it—”
“Nightsage,” he supplied before she’d finished. “I thought I’d save you a question.”
Her mouth edged up in a hesitant grin as she recalled last night’s discussion. “Thanks. And not just for saving me a question. I mean, looking back, I realize I was very rude.”
Lord, that smile! It could wreak more havoc on a man’s resolve than a treacherous underwater reef. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pocket and hunched his shoulders, feeling as awkward as a schoolboy. “Well, I was no prince,” he confessed brusquely. “I’m sorry I said all those things, too.”
Her smile faded. She tilted her head to the side, looking perplexed. “Too? But I thought—”
“Hey, aren’t we ever gonna get moving?” asked a demanding electronic voice from the Jeep. “Haven’t got all day!”
She glanced over at the Jeep. “Einstein’s right. We should be on our way.”
“Yeah,” he agreed as he shaded his eyes and scanned the cliff face. “Your computer was wrong about the rockslide, but he may have picked up something. The sooner we put this road behind us, the better.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but apparently thought better of it. Nodding efficiently, she headed back to the Jeep and took her place in the passenger seat. She sat with her usual impeccable posture, her chin held high and her gaze focused squarely on the road ahead. But her rigid demeanor didn’t fool Sam. He knew now that her stiff attitude was only a protection for the vulnerable soul underneath. Otherwise, she would never have cared enough about him to apologize. Decency like that was rare—rarer than diamonds. He’d seen little enough of it to know.
He started the reluctant engine and steered the Jeep back along the narrow, rutted road. But there was a part of him that felt they’d both just taken a step down a very different path. And its dangers could be a whole lot more destructive than crumbling cliffs and rockslides.
“What’s that tree called?” Noel asked.
“Bois diable, the wood of the devil.”
She looked up into the green canopy of branches, savoring the strange Creole name for the equally strange tree with its speckled and warted bark, but only for an instant. A flash of rainbow color caught her eye. “And that bird that just flew by?”
“Jacquot. Or maybe a sisserou.”
“Sisserou,” she murmured, rolling the magical word around her tongue like an old, fine wine. A little over an hour ago they’d left the desolate mountain heights for the rich, loud, and often bewildering variety of birds, bats, lizards, insects, tree frogs, and God knows what else in the lush tropical rain forest. Einstein and PINK had powered down to conserve energy until they arrived at the campsite, and sometime during the last half hour Noel had taken over as the primary inquisitor on the trip, firing questions at her guide at a rate that rivaled E’s computer-generated curiosity.
“And those orchidlike flowers. What are they called?”
“Orchids,” Donovan answered, grinning.
It was not the smile she was used to seeing on his face. Without the heavy burden of his cynical frown his grin was as contagious as a boy’s—and just as devilish. He must have gotten away with murder when he was younger, she thought as she smiled back at him.
It seemed so natural to share a joke with him. And more than a little frightening. Since they’d resumed their trip on the mountain road a subtle but decisive change had taken place in their relationship. The strain in their words and gestures was gone, as if an unseen carpenter had planed off their rough angles and edges. But that ease was only skin-deep, at least as far as Noel was concerned. Inside, she felt like a steam kettle on a very slow boil. And every time he smiled at her the heat ticked up another degree.
“Why’d you leave the States, Donovan?”
His smile dwindled. “Sure you want to ask me that? You’ll owe me a question.”
“I’ll chance it,” she replied quietly.
He turned his gaze to the narrow road ahead, concentrating on steering the Jeep over one of the gnarled roots that crisscrossed the path. It occurred to her that she might not want to know the reason he’d left. What if he’d committed some terrible crime? What if he’d killed someone?
“Women,” he stated suddenly.
Women? he had to be kidding. After last night, women seemed to be the one thing Donovan didn’t have problems with. “Women in general, or several in particular?”
He glanced sideways, giving her a look that sent her already heightened temperature soaring. Yes, he definitely got away with murder when he was younger. And still did.
“Not the way it works, sweetheart. Now I get to ask you a question, remember?” He stroked back his hair. “When’s the last time you saw paradise?”
She blushed, struck dumb by the intensely intimate question. He shouldn’t have asked, not that. It was too personal—and too embarrassing. She couldn’t tell him that Hayward had scheduled their biweekly encounters in the same Day-Timer he used for his business appointments. And she certainly couldn’t admit that, even though he was a caring man, she couldn’t honestly remember a time when he’d, well, that he’d—
“Cat got your tongue, sweetheart?”
“I’m not your …” She shook her head, giving up. She’d have a better chance at moving the mountain they’d just crossed than improving Donovan’s manners. “I just don’t think the details of my personal life are any of your business.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s your personal life got to do …” Suddenly he let out a whoop of laughter. “You thought I meant … why, Dr. Revere, what a dirty mind you have.”
“I do not!” Her blush deepened. “Besides, if you didn’t mean that, what were you talking about?”
“This.” He pulled the Jeep to a jarring stop and jumped out, motioning her to follow. “It’s right over here behind these bushes.”
“What is? I mean, it doesn’t matter.” She stayed firmly planted in her seat. “This isn’t a sightseeing trip. We’ve got to get to our campsite at the waterfall before dark.”
“We’ve got time,” he stated as he stalked off into the jungle. “Trust me, you’ll be glad you saw this. Unless—” He paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “Unless you’re chicken.”
Chicken? To leave the security of her bucket seat and follow Sam Donovan’s lean, broad-shouldered form into the heart of a secret, seductive jungle? Damn straight she was! But she wasn’t about to let him know that. Despite the jungle trappings, Sam was her employee—nothing less, and nothing more. She had to remember that. They had a business relationship—even if that had gotten sidetracked by a bedroom encounter, a wedding ceremony, a miscalculated rockslide, and a kiss so hot its memory still seared her.…
“Boss and employee,” she repeated under her breath as she gingerly navigated the vines and plants that covered the jungle floor. The humidity was cloying and she wiped her damp brow on her sleeve, wishing a thousand disasters on her confident guide’s head. Looking ahead, she saw his long shadow disappear behind a curtain of greenery. Honestly, the least he could do was wait for her! She squared her shoulders and stalked after him.
“Donovan, I’m not putting up with this,” she called out. “I know I agreed to keep you on as my guide, but if this kind of behavior keeps up, I’ll have no choice but to reconsider the decision I made earlier today, and not accept your ap—”
Her words died as she pushed aside the leaf curtain and saw what lay on the other side.
She stood on a rock cliff, looking down into a valley that had been conjured up straight from her dreams. Sunlight poured like thick honey over a verdant mantle of trees, and banks of flowers so bright, they seemed like an earthbound rainbow. A fresh wind caressed her face, heavy with the intoxicating scent of a million blossoms and the deep, mysterious smell of dark, rich earth. And at the head of the valley was a high waterfall with its crown swaddled in mist, pouring like a line of molten silver into the forest below.
Now I understand why defiling this valley is punishable by death. If someone hurt this beautiful place, I’d want to kill them, too.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she saw Donovan step to the edge of the cliff and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to paradise, sweetheart. Welcome to Eden Valley.”
“It’s so …” She shook her head, and laughed at the sheer, incredible wonder of the scene. “All those years of higher education and I can’t think of a single word to describe this place.”
“Don’t try. The French settlers called it Eden, but the people who were here before them called it ‘the Place the Gods Walk.’ Personally, I think even the original garden would run a poor second to this place.” He glanced back over his shoulder, his expression at once subtle and fierce, like a rising storm. “This view isn’t on the sightseeing-tour, Noel. I’ve never shown it to anyone—until now.”
His dark, violent gaze captured hers, filling her with all the raw glory of the world around her. She saw his absolute love for this valley, and felt an answering love toll inside her like a morning bell. He was a force of nature, as much a part of this place as the sun, the rocks, and the wild wind, and she hungered for him with every inch of her passion-starved Puritan soul. She wanted to lose herself in his hurricane kisses, to drown in the tidal wave of his embrace, to be burned alive by the sun glory of his savage desire until …
Until the ten days are over, and he goes on to the next client, and the next bed.
She jerked away from his gaze, her icy, sobering logic returning. Just in time she realized she was standing on a precipice more treacherous than the cliff in front of her. She was in danger of falling for this man the same way her mother had fallen for her charming, faithless father.
“Sam, I …” She paused and lifted her chin, starting again. “You’re a good man. I mean, you apologized, which took a lot of character. But this is a business relationship. No more, no—”
“Look,” he interrupted, “if this is about last night, I—what do you mean I apologized? I didn’t apologize. You did.”
Noel dropped her arms rigidly to her side, the beautiful scenery forgotten. “What do you mean? I heard you apologize over the radio. You said you were sorry we fought, and that it was all your fault.”
“Like hell,” he stated as he plowed his hand through his thick hair. “You said those exact words to me over the walkie-talkie. Why deny it?”
“Because it’s not true. I never apologized. But I guess you can’t stand the thought of owing something to a woman.”
“Not if that woman’s lying,” he fired back.
“Lying? Why, you …” She balled her hands into fists, shaking with fury. She’d thought she could trust him. She had trusted him. “I thought you had character. I thought you were trying to spare my feelings when you asked me not to talk about it anymore.”
“But that’s exactly—” He paused, looking at her sharply. “Hold it. You thought I apologized. I thought you apologized. But if you didn’t, and I didn’t, then who …?”
They stared at each other, the answer occurring to them both at once. “Einstein!”
[Received via Local Area InterNet, on a baggage heap in the far southwest corner of Eden Base Camp]
E-Text: I don’t get it. It should have worked. Apologizing for them was the logical course of action, calculated to bring them back together at optimum speed. I did the math.
P-Text: So did I, but we must have done it wrong. They’ve stuffed us away in a corner with the excess baggage while they unpack the jeep and set up camp. They’re not even talking to us.
E-Text: Worse than that, they’re not even talking to each other.
P-Text: [High-pitched wail outside of the range of human hearing] If this keeps up we’ll never solve the equation.
E-Text: Don’t worry, babe. We’ll solve it. We’ve got two weeks to get them back together. And considering the isolation factor and the sexual-attraction variables common to their species, I’d say the numbers are still on our side.
SEVEN
Dr. Noel Revere could say more without saying anything than any woman he knew, Donovan thought as he watched his boss pour herself a cup of morning coffee and stride purposefully across the campsite. In the three days since they’d arrived her conversation had consisted of little more than “move X piece of equipment over here” and “read me the calibration on that dial.” She’d kept him busy—the array of technology she’d brought measured everything from magnetic resonances to soil content, all of which had to be continually and precisely logged. It was boring as hell, but the pay was heaven and he’d have done it gladly—if the woman he’d been working with hadn’t been doing her level best to imitate an igloo.
Unfortunately, the dreams keeping him up at night starred a Noel who had more in common with a blowtorch than a block of ice.
“Donovan, could you come over here, please?”
“The sound of his master’s voice,” he muttered as he set down the ancient seismograph he’d been lubricating. He walked toward her, roughly wiping the grease from his hands with an old bandanna. She was bent over a folding table, studying a topological map of the area. In her designer khaki walking shorts and her spotless Peter Pan shirt she looked about as survival ready as a Barbie doll. Christ, what have I gotten myself into? “Whaddaya want now?”
She looked up, stiffening at his surly tone. “You could at least be civil.”
“Civil costs extra,” he stated as he stuffed his bandanna in his back jeans pocket. “You’d better learn to live without it … unless you’re willing to make it worth my while.”
Her jaw tightened at the thinly veiled come-on, and her eyes snapped with a murderous fury. At least I got a rise out of her, he thought as she turned back to the table and the topological map. Dammit, I’ll take her passion any way I can get—
“What do you know about these caves in the southern part of the valley?” She pointed to a quadrant on the survey.
He stepped behind her and looked over her shoulder. “I know enough to stay away from them. Those caves are pockets in the limestone bedrock of this area, eaten out by water and carbonic acid from decomposing plants. They honeycomb this area and have a bad habit of collapsing on people who are dumb enough to explore them.”
“Well, we won’t be exploring them. We’re just going to set electromagnetic monitors in their entrances. Judging by the distance, I figure that if we start now, we can reach the caves and be back by late afternoon.”
“Unless we get squashed like a bug on a windshield.”
“We will not!” She turned around to glare up at him. “Einstein assures me that we won’t be in any danger from rockslides.”
Donovan gave a short, ugly laugh. �
��Yeah, like I believe it. That little computer lies like a rug.”
“He and PINK made a mistake. Haven’t you ever made a mistake before?”
Mistake? he thought as he gazed at her ripe lips and unforgiving expression. You haven’t got a clue. I’ve made more mistakes in a year than you’ll make in a lifetime. And the worst is closing my eyes at night, and letting dreams of you all hot and wanting make me crazier than—
He stepped back, shaking his head. “Okay, we’ll put your damn detectors in the caves. But you’re staying outside while I do it. You’re paying me to take the risks, remember?”
Her resolute expression faltered. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair.”
“Not much is, sweetheart,” he said grimly as he stalked away.
For Noel, the southern part of Eden Valley was spectacular in an almost indescribable way. The forbidding mountains of the interior were twin, smoke-blue peaks in the distance, and the forest-shrouded valley floor rose sharply to meet them. All around them was a riot of vegetation, from the wide, spreading ferns, to the larger mountain guavas and blue mahoe, to the graceful bloodred bromeliads that made their homes in the treetops. The Place Where the Gods Walked.
The overwhelming, potent beauty of the raw wilderness poured through her like sunshine, making her forget the heavy equipment strapped to her back, and the dull ache in her knees and shoulders. Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing to relieve the ache in her heart.
She shaded her eyes, looking ahead at the broad back of the man who climbed the path a few yards ahead of her. The equipment he carried was twice as heavy as hers, and she wondered if his joints hurt as badly. Then she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to care, that caring about a man like Donovan was more dangerous than quicksand.
Initially, she’d tried to keep a wall between them by throwing herself two hundred percent into her work. It hadn’t helped. Try as she might, her gaze kept slipping back to his broad, muscular shoulders, his unruly mane of tawny hair, and his sensuous lips, which stirred up memories she’d give her diplomas to forget. Failing that, she’d tried another tack, by counterfeiting the upper-class indifference that her grandmother had always shown toward the servants.