“What did you do to him?”
“It’s only a sedative. He’ll wake up within the hour.” She was still staring down at the fallen man with glittering eyes. “I knew he would try to put me on the helicopter so I was prepared.” She lifted her head. “Will you help me with him? We have to get him on the helicopter right away.”
Skip shook his head. “We can’t take him. He weighs too much.”
“But I’m not going,” she said desperately. “And Ricardo only weighs about one hundred and sixty pounds. That’s not so much.” She took a step closer to the glass-enclosed bubble of the cockpit. “Look, you’ve got to take him. He’s Ricardo Lazaro, and it’s only a matter of time before they catch him. You have to get him off the island.”
“A hundred and sixty pounds …” Skip shook his head. “That’s still too much weight.”
A shock of fear shivered through Samantha. “Isn’t there something else you can take out?”
“The copter’s already stripped. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave him.”
“I can’t.” This was truly the end then, she thought numbly. The end for both her and Ricardo.
“Take him.” The passenger door was opening and Fletch Bronson was stepping to the ground.
Skip immediately protested. “Fletch, we can’t—”
“I’m staying. You won’t have a problem with weight.”
Fletch was coming around the front of the ’copter, and Samantha’s eyes widened. She had been so tense and absorbed, she had been only marginally aware of Bronson as a shadowy figure in the passenger seat. There was nothing shadowy about the man coming toward her with swift, impatient strides. She had seen pictures of him in the newspaper when he had first arrived on St. Pierre four days ago, but they had failed to capture the presence of Fletcher Bronson. The man was a Titan. He stood at least six-five and was too large-boned to be considered slim, though there was no spare flesh on his body. He was probably in his early forties; his auburn hair, closely barbered to suppress rebellious curls, was threaded with silver. The planes of his cheeks were broad, his rust-colored brows thick, bold slashes above those cool green eyes. No one, Samantha thought, would call him good-looking. Yet there was something fascinating about his bone structure, a subtle beauty in the well-defined curve of his lips that made one want to keep looking.
He picked up Ricardo as easily as he would a sleeping child, deposited him in the helicopter, and slid the door closed. Then he stepped back and grasped Samantha’s elbow, carrying her with him away from the aircraft. “Now get out of here, Skip. Come back for us tomorrow night about this time. It should be safe by then.”
“But what if—”
“Move!”
Skip sighed as he turned on the ignition and the propellers started whirring. “I’m moving already.” A moment later the helicopter rose sluggishly into the air.
Fletch immediately turned to Samantha. “I gather we can’t wait to bid them a lingering farewell?”
Samantha shook her head. “The soldiers will be here any minute.” She turned and set off across the glade toward the shadowy protection of the rain forest. “Come with me.”
“I intend to,” Fletch said dryly. “I have no intention of wandering around in these hills by myself. Do you know a safe place to hide out tonight and tomorrow?”
Samantha smiled back over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I know a place. I’ll take good care of you.”
She meant it, Fletch realized with shock. It was absurd, of course. He hadn’t needed anyone to protect or care for him in more years than he could remember, and he certainly had no confidence in Samantha’s ability to do so, either. She looked as ethereal as the moonlight. Too damn ethereal. He felt an odd resentment as he saw how loosely her khaki trousers hung on her slim hips. “Since you’re not even carrying a rifle, you’ll forgive me if I find it difficult to believe you could overpower a patrol. Lazaro’s forces must have been even more impoverished than I’ve heard if he couldn’t afford to give his followers weapons.”
“I don’t like guns,” she said simply. “Ricardo knew that and never suggested I use one. I was principally a courier and radio operator.”
“How understanding of Lazaro.”
“Ricardo is very understanding,” she said earnestly. “And weapons won’t help if the patrol catches up with us. We’d do better to avoid them. I know these hills, and I won’t let you be caught.”
“Thank you,” he said, and for some reason he found the intended irony entirely missing from the words.
“It’s I who should thank you,” she said gravely, “for giving up your place to Ricardo. I owe you a great debt.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said bluntly. “I never do anything I don’t want to do. I just had too much sense to stand there arguing until the soldiers appeared and caught all of us.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “I see. Well, then I’m grateful that you’re so sensible. It was a lucky break for Ricardo and me.”
Her steps quickened as she entered the luxuriant, junglelike shrubbery of the rain forest.
Fletch pursed his lips in a soundless whistle as he looked around the cavern. “Well, I’ll be damned. You obviously do all right for yourselves. As a hideout, this is on the grand scale.”
“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Samantha moved the lantern in her hand, playing the light over the walls of the cave on either side of the stony path they were traversing through the cavern. Stalactites, varying in shades from cream to peach-amber, hung like giant icicles from the ceiling far above them. “It’s very safe, too, with that thick brush cover in front. We were lucky to find this place.”
“How long have you used these caverns?”
“About two years.” Her tone was somber. “When we first discovered it, things were much different. There were still more than five hundred of us. We had hope.” She straightened her shoulders as if shrugging off a burden. “Well, that’s in the past. When Ricardo finally realized four months ago that he wasn’t going to be able to overthrow the junta, he disbanded his forces, telling his men to go home. Then there were only four of us left. Ricardo, me, Paco Ranalto, and Dr. Salazar. We managed a few last raids on the Abbey, but we all knew it was really the end. Ricardo sent Paco and the doctor away two days ago, but he still needed someone to help get the refugees off the island. He didn’t argue with me when I told him I wouldn’t leave him.”
No, she wouldn’t have left Lazaro, Fletch thought with a pang that was strangely like the throb of a fresh wound. That last embrace they had shared had practically shouted of the love existing between them. “What would have happened if you’d been caught with him?”
“Nothing very pleasant.” The lightness in her voice was obviously forced. “But I would have survived. I wasn’t really important to them. The junta wanted Ricardo badly to make an example of him. You were his last chance to get off the island, but I knew he wouldn’t take it.”
“So you saw that he did. Where did you get the sedative and the hypodermic?”
“From Dr. Salazar. He brought Ricardo into the world and knew we had to save him. He loves him very much.”
“As you do?”
She glanced over her shoulder, and her thin face was again illuminated by that incredibly radiant smile. “As I do.”
Fletch experienced another twisting pain of an intensity that shocked him. Why should the woman’s willingness to sacrifice her life for Lazaro matter? She was nothing to him. Granted, she possessed a rather ethereal beauty, but he had never been attracted to her type before. His mistress of the moment was dark, lush, and experienced enough to please even the most demanding voluptuary. This child would break in his hands.
“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
She looked at him in surprise. “Twenty.” Her brow wrinkled in a frown. “No, that’s not right. I must be twenty-one. We never thought much about birthdays here.”
Another emotion rained through him, this one mo
re maddening and far more poignant. Tenderness. A child with no birthdays, a child who lived in a cave surrounded by violence and fear, a child alone … No! He wouldn’t feel like this. This entire scene was completely unlike him, and so were his reactions to Samantha Barton. She had not been alone. She was Ricardo Lazaro’s woman, a camp follower who had chosen her way of life. “How long have you been with Lazaro?”
“Six years.”
That would have to make her about fifteen when she first bedded Lazaro. How could she have made any kind of voluntary choice at that age? Another emotion flashed through him, much stronger and now clearly recognizable as jealousy. The image of her coupling with Lazaro, lying beneath him, those slim fingers clutching his bare shoulders as he—
“How old are you?”
He was jerked back to the present. “Thirty-seven.”
“I thought you were older.”
Compared to that damn Adonis she was sleeping with, he was a Methuselah. “I’m old enough.”
She laughed. “That was rude, wasn’t it? It’s not that you look old. As a matter of fact, you’re sort of ageless. Like that Ayers rock in Australia, or maybe one of those Easter Island statues.”
“Thank you.”
She paid no attention to the irony of his words as she gazed at him thoughtfully. “No, that wasn’t the reason I thought you were older. You’ve accomplished so much with your life in those thirty-seven years. I read all about you in the paper when you arrived on St. Pierre. Are you really a billionaire?”
“Yes.”
“I bet you don’t give yourself much time to spend all that money.” She was still studying him, and he was reminded of the curiosity of a small child. “I think you’re the kind of man who likes the battle more than the prize.”
His lips curved with sudden humor. “It depends on the prize. I assure you I have quite sybaritic tastes on occasion. For instance, under normal circumstances I’d find your pretty cavern tolerable for all of thirty minutes.”
“It grows on you.” She laughed suddenly, her topaz eyes dancing as she gestured around her. “Like those stalactites. Lord knows, I’ve sometimes felt I was turning into one when we were forced to stay in here weeks at a time.” She shot him an impish sidewise glance. “I’ll try to get you out of here and on that helicopter before you truly turn to stone.”
“Me? You’re speaking in the singular. There’s no reason why you can’t come with me. There’ll be plenty of room on the helicopter tomorrow night.”
“I can’t leave yet. Paco still has to be gotten off the island.”
“You said Lazaro sent him to his home.”
“It was the only solution at the time. Dr. Salazar will probably be safe in his village, but Paco was Ricardo’s first lieutenant and someday someone will find out who he is and expose him to the junta.”
“But my helicopter was supposedly your last chance of getting anyone off the island.”
Her jaw set with determination. “I’ll just have to find another way.”
“And get yourself captured while you’re trying to rescue him?” He could hear the harshness in his own voice, but he didn’t try to temper it. She intended to stay here alone; the realization filled him with a panic as un-explainable as the other emotions that had assaulted him since she had stepped into the pool of light at the helicopter. “What a stupid thing to do.”
“Maybe.” Her lips were trembling as she tried to smile. “But I have to do it.” She quickly changed the subject. “I won’t make you walk much farther. There’s a place up ahead where you can make yourself comfortable. It’s like a lovely, huge room. There are several areas similar to it in the caverns, but this is the largest.” She hurried on ahead, her voice echoing back to him. “It gets awfully cold in here at night, but we have blankets and can build a small fire.”
“Samantha, you can’t stay …” His words trailed off. She wasn’t listening and was walking so swiftly, he had to lengthen his stride to keep her in view.
He turned the corner and stopped in amazement. The expanse before him was similar to the huge, high-ceilinged room to which she had compared it—providing that room had been located on another planet. It was a good fifty feet long, forty feet wide, and the stalactites hanging far above him gave the entire area the appearance of an alien landscape. A cave on the moon might have looked like this, he thought. It would possess the same sterile beauty, the same chilling magnificence.
“The pool over there is fed by a fresh spring that empties into a lake after it leaves the cavern.” Samantha lit a large candle affixed to the stone wall by a crude black iron sconce. “It’s ice-cold but adequate for bathing.”
The signs of human habitation were sparse, a shortwave radio against the far wall, several khaki canvas backpacks, two battered metal trunks, a tin coffeepot and dishes stacked by a pile of beige army blankets. Small stones encircled the blackened ashes that was all that remained of a campfire, and wood was stacked in readiness beside it. She had lived here for two years, he realized. How would it feel to live in this soulless emptiness for that length of time?
“And these blankets are clean,” she said earnestly. She took four of the beige blankets from the stack against the wall and hurried back to spread two of them, doubled over, on the hard stone floor before the ashes of the campfire. She then spread the other two blankets on the other side of the circle of stones against the cavern wall. “There. At least that’s better than the ground. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“We have bread and cheese.” She hurried to one of the canvas bags and extracted a quarter of a loaf of bread and a bit of Swiss cheese wrapped in foil. She placed them both on the blanket and then straightened. “You can start on that. There are plenty of rations in another room of the cavern. I’ll go get them.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It’s no trouble.” She flashed him another smile as she picked up the lantern. “Eat. I’ll be back soon.”
She walked quickly out of the room in the direction from which they had come, and he heard her footsteps echo and then fade away.
Loneliness. Fletch was suddenly conscious of a terrible aloneness as he stood there in the immensity of stone and space. Aloneness, silence, and an awareness of his own vitality, the blood running through his veins, his humanity in a place that seemed inhuman. Lord, he was growing imaginative, he thought in disgust. This was just a cave, Samantha Barton was merely a woman, and day after next he’d be done with both of them and back to his own life.
He crossed the room and dropped down on the blankets Samantha had spread for him. He had missed dinner, and his stomach was now reminding him of that omission. He reached for the bread and cheese and began to eat.
________
She had to face it, there was a possibility she would die before she managed to leave the island.
Samantha breathed in the warm night air, trying to fight down the fear that persisted in rising within her. She couldn’t hide forever from the knowledge just because it made her sick with fear. She had been frightened before but never like this. Then it had been a shared fear with Ricardo and the others, an emotion she could deal with if she found something to laugh about or had someone to reach out and touch when the panic came. Now she was alone, and no one knew better than she how dangerous the next few months would be. Her chances of surviving were pitifully slim.
Unless she got on that helicopter the following night.
Why not? She wanted to live, dammit. It was like a wild hunger in her. There were so many things she wanted to do and see and feel. She had done nothing but run and hide for as long as she could remember. Didn’t she deserve something?
But Paco deserved to live, too, and she couldn’t desert him and go her way. Their friendship had been forged in the most enduring flames of all. Ricardo and Paco had shared their laughter and their meager rations, as well as the danger, since they had taken her from the Abbey six years ago. Even while fear and wild rebellion were
clawing at her, she knew she couldn’t change her decision. She had to stay on St. Pierre.
It was no good standing here daydreaming, she thought, suddenly impatient with herself. There were some roads a person was forced to travel, and this was one of them. She would just have to find a way to crush the cowardice that held her in its thrall. She checked her wristwatch. She had given Fletcher Bronson over an hour, and that should be enough time.
She picked up the lantern she had set on the ground beside the entrance of the cave and began to wend her way quickly toward the room where she had left him. Relief surged through her as she realized she wasn’t yet alone. Tonight, at least, she would have this man, stranger though he was, for company. She would get him to talk to her, and that should help stave off her fear.
A tiny smile curved her lips as she thought how annoyed Fletcher Bronson would be to know she intended to use him as a distraction. She had the impression that he allowed no one to use him in any fashion whatever.
What an unusual man he had turned out to be. She was accustomed to tough men, but he was more than tough. His physical prowess was matched by a depth of inner strength she could only sense, and he protected himself with a wall of barbed sharpness that allowed no one near. He was blunt to the point of rudeness and evidently said exactly what he thought and no more. His bluntness had amused and intrigued rather than offended her, and for a moment she wondered why, before dismissing it as unimportant. No matter how difficult the man might be personally, he had come when they needed him, and for that reason alone she was desperately grateful.
She turned the corner and saw him sitting on the blankets, his arms looped around his knees. Every muscle of his big frame breathed impatience and pent-up tension, and she was suddenly aware of the power of his large body. The massive muscles of his thighs were outlined, rather than concealed, by the fabric of his jeans, and his brawny shoulders strained against the cream-colored shirt as if fighting to get free. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbow revealing the strength of his forearms. Looking at him, she felt a strange tingling in her palms and the arches of her feet.