One Touch of Topaz (8 page)

He glanced at her inquiringly.

She smiled tentatively. “It’s just that I thought we might spend some time together today. It would be nice to talk and get to know each other.”

His expression was unrevealing. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’m not feeling very sociable.”

“We could play cards. I forgot I had a deck of cards in my trunk.”

His gaze searched her face. “What are you trying to say, Samantha?”

She was silent a moment. “Please stay,” she whispered. “You’ll be gone so soon. I don’t want to be alone today.”

His expression became even more shuttered. “And what will you give me if I stay?”

“Anything,” she said simply.

A muscle jerked in his left cheek. “I know you would, and if I stayed, I’d probably be bastard enough to take whatever was offered.”

“There’s nothing wrong in accepting gifts.”

“No.” He smiled cynically. “But there’s something definitely shady about accepting bribes. I may play hardball, but I’ve always tried to play it fair.”

“I see.” She tried to smile. “I understand. I’m sorry I was so pushy. You must be very bored here, and I’m sure you’re sorry you jumped off that helicopter. I told you there was nothing of interest or value on St. Pierre.”

“But I think I have found something of value here.” He turned slowly to face her. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“A deal?”

He nodded. “How many statues do you have here in the cavern?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Why just the two heads and three smaller pieces. I gave the rest away when Ricardo sent the men to their homes.”

“I want them.”

“All of them?” She looked at him in bewilderment. “Why?”

“A whim. I’m a rich man, and I can afford to indulge my whims. What do you want for them?”

She shook her head. “You can have them. I don’t want your money.”

“You
will
starve in that garret.” He groaned. “Don’t give away your work. Charge me, dammit.”

“All right.” She paused. “Stay with me.”

Suddenly the silence between them was charged with tension. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t think it was so much. Only a few hours—”

“Harder than you think.” He walked toward her and set the lantern back down beside the fire. “But I’m taking what I want, anyway.”

“And paying for it?”

“And paying for it.” He dropped down beside her. “Through the nose. All right, I’ll be your court jester and help you fight your personal dragons. Get that pack of cards, Samantha.”

________

The whir of the helicopter’s rotors broke the stillness, and Samantha’s hands slowly closed into fists at her sides. It was almost over. In another few minutes the helicopter would be on the ground and Fletch would be climbing into the passenger seat. She would probably never see him again. Pain twisted through her, and she closed her eyes to block out the sight of the slowly descending helicopter. She’d had many partings in her life and this was just another. It wasn’t reasonable this one should hurt so much more than the ones that had gone before.

“Samantha?”

She opened her eyes to see Fletch gazing down at her, his expression tense in the moonlight filtering through the trees. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled. “I guess we’d better get out there and meet your pilot.”

“In a minute.” His gaze was fixed on
her face. “It’s your last chance, Samantha. Change your mind and come with me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Not while Paco is still here.” She held out her hand. “Good-bye, Fletch. Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

He took her hand. “Just like that?” His voice was suddenly savage. “Good-bye, good luck, have a nice life?”

“What else?” She blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling. “I doubt if we’ll ever run into each other again even if I—” She stopped and wearily shook her head. “We hardly move in the same circles.”

“No, we don’t.” His hand tightened on hers with crushing force. “I can’t say I number any martyrs among my acquaintances.”

“Don’t be angry,” she whispered. “You gave me something very special. I don’t want to remember you like this.”

“How do you want to remember me?” he asked. “The man who stole your last bite of food, not to mention your virginity?”

She flinched. “You stole nothing. Everything was given freely.”

“I forgot. Your peculiar ideas of hospitality.”

“I didn’t realize this would be so difficult.” She tried to draw her hand away from his, glancing at the helicopter, which was now hovering only a few feet above the ground. “I think I’d better leave you.”

“No!” Fletch’s voice was suddenly sharp, and his grasp tightened on her hand. “Come with me to the helicopter.” He drew a deep breath, and his tone took on a mocking lightness. “You’re so fanatical on the issue of hospitality that at least you can see a guest to the door.”

She gazed at him in bewilderment. His demeanor had changed from biting anger to mocking lightness in the flicker of a heartbeat, but she could still sense the disturbance swirling beneath that controlled facade. “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.” His hand released its grip on hers, and he took a step back.
“It’s not all that I want, but it will do for a start. I’m learning to do without quite a few things I want since I met you.”

She turned away and started across the glade. “Has it been that bad? I know conditions in the cavern were pretty Spartan, but I’d hoped I’d made you comfortable. And we did have a good time this afternoon.” During those hours playing cards Fletch had revealed an entirely new facet of his personality. He had been witty, outrageous, even whimsical. She almost wished he hadn’t shown her how charming he could be beneath that rough exterior. It made this parting even more difficult. She glanced back over her shoulder. “And you have to admit I did give you something you wanted—those statues in your backpack. They don’t have any real value, but you said—”

“They have value,” Fletch said, interrupting.

“I’m glad you like them.” She smiled. “I like to think of them displayed in one of
those fine houses you own. Don’t stuff them in a closet somewhere, will you?”

“No, I won’t do that.”

“Good. Then I’ll feel much better about parting with them. Who knows? Maybe someday you’ll give a fancy dinner party, a famous art critic will see one of my statues, and I’ll be discovered. Perhaps you’ll be able to sell them for enough to make it worth the trouble of lugging that load down from the caverns.”

“It’s worth the trouble now. I have no intention of selling them.”

“Then they’ll be something to remember me by,” she said softly. “I’ll like that even more.”

An emotion Samantha couldn’t identify flickered on Fletch’s face before he gave her an equally baffling smile. “I have no intention of remembering you, Samantha.”

Hurt tore through her. Stupid. She was so stupid to react like this. Why should he want to remember her? she thought. A fleeting sexual encounter with a clumsy, inexperienced
virgin, twenty-four hours of discomfort and danger. “Well, I’ll remember you,” she said tremulously. “My very first tycoon and my first—oh, God,
run
, Fletch!” She grabbed him by the arm and broke into a dead run toward the helicopter.

A bullet tore past her ear.

“The patrol,” Fletch muttered. “They must have sighted the helicopter last night and been waiting for us.”

Soldiers were pouring out of the rain forest and thundering across the glade toward them.

They still had several yards to go, but she could see the passenger door of the helicopter being thrown open and heard the engine revving.

Another bullet screamed by her, this one much closer. She cast a desperate glance over her shoulder. A soldier with a drawn pistol was gaining, but he wasn’t pointing it at her now. He was aiming at Fletch, the larger target!

“No!” Without thinking, she fell back,
dashing between the soldier and Fletch’s broad back. Agonizing pain tore through her, and for a moment she didn’t comprehend what had happened. Then she realized she’d been shot. Was she going to die? There was blood …

“God!” Fletch’s features were drawn with pain in the moonlight. “Why—” He broke off as Samantha started to crumple to the ground. He snatched her up as if she were a rag doll and covered the last few yards to the helicopter in a desperate sprint.

“Take off!” he shouted as he jumped into the passenger seat.

“The door—”

“To hell with the door!”

The helicopter rose from the ground just as the first soldier reached the open door. The soldier grabbed, missed, then dropped back to the ground, cursing as the helicopter rose another twenty feet and skimmed toward the opposite end of the glade. A spray of bullets hit the metal of the helicopter.

“Cripes,” Skip yelled. “I hope they didn’t hit the gas tank.” He rose another thirty feet, barely skimming the tops of the trees where the glade ended and the rain forest began. “I think we’re out of range now. Can you reach over and close that door? Open, it doesn’t make for great speed.”

Fletch shook his head. “Not yet. I don’t want to move her until I find out where she’s been hit.” His arms tightened around Samantha’s slight body. “I’ll see if I can stop the bleeding before she regains consciousness.”

“Do you think it’s bad?”

“How the hell should I know?” Fletch’s voice was harsh with pain. “I’m no doctor. She could be dying and I wouldn’t be able to tell.”

“I couldn’t see much in the darkness. Why did she fall back? She could have made it if—”

“She was protecting me. She took the bullet for me.” Fletch’s mirthless laughter held a thread of desperation. “I should have known
she’d do something like this, if she had the chance. I swear the woman has a martyr complex. Dear Lord, she did it for me.”

Skip cast him a sidewise glance. “She must be a pretty brave woman.”

“She doesn’t think so.” Fletch’s hand was trembling as he smoothed back the chestnut hair from Samantha’s face. She was as pale as marble in the dim light cast by the control panel. Fear clutched at his throat. Then he saw the faint movement at her temple, and relief pounded through him. She was still alive. “She thinks she’s a coward. She was so afraid …” Fletch roused himself and begun to unbutton Samantha’s bloodstained shirt. “Get me that first-aid kit under the seat, then radio Damon’s Reef and tell them I want a surgeon and a nurse when we land at the heliport.”

The shirt was unbuttoned, but he hesitated, his teeth clenched with tension and fear, creating a cold knot in his stomach.

He slowly opened Samantha’s bloodstained shirt to examine the wound.

T
HE FIRST OBJECT
that came into focus when Samantha opened her eyes was the baseball cap. The red, sun-faded hat was perched with casual impudence on the rumpled sandy hair of Skip Brennen. He was older than he had looked in the shadowy lights of the helicopter’s control panel, she thought hazily. Brennen must be somewhere in his mid-thirties, though his square, blocky physique and lack of height made him appear much younger. Freckles covered his face in such profusion, they looked like a tan
and formed a solid background for the light blue eyes that were now gazing down at her quizzically. “Hi, I’m Skip Brennen. I won’t be hurt if you don’t remember me. You were pretty busy the one time we introduced ourselves.”

“I remember you …” Her eyes widened as she came to full alertness. “Is Fletch—”

“Fletch is fine. You were the only one who was wounded.”

She relaxed. “That’s good.”

“Not according to Fletch.” Skip grimaced. “He’s been giving us hell for the last twenty-four hours. First he was sure you were dying. Then when he found you only had a graze across your rib cage, he couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t wake up.”

“I don’t understand, either.” She struggled to a sitting position, flinching as a hot pain streaked through her left side. She shook her head in wonder. Twenty-four hours. She gazed around the light, airy room. This was definitely not a hospital room. Everything around her spoke of the casual elegance that
only money and a skilled interior decorator could produce. The room was lovely, summery with its white wicker furniture, the green-leaf print on the white curtains at the large picture windows, the plush luxury of the emerald-green carpet. “Where am I?”

“Damon’s Reef. Fletch didn’t want you moved any farther until you regained consciousness.”

“Moved?” One hand threaded nervously through her hair. “Oh, yes, of course. He’ll want to send me to Barbados as soon as I’m able to travel.”

Skip shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what he has in mind.” He grinned down at her. “But I’ll let you find out for yourself from Fletch. He told me to let him know the minute you woke up. Do you think you’re in good enough shape to face him yet?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Well, most people find Fletch a bit overpowering.” He tapped his chest. “Yours
truly included. I wouldn’t want to face him in a weakened condition.”

She frowned. “I don’t know why you say that. Fletch is really very kind.”

“Kind? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Fletch referred to in that way.”

“No, truly. He appears all prickly on the outside, but he does want what’s best for people. He just gets crotchety when people don’t agree with him about what’s best for them.”

He burst out laughing. “Crotchety? I love it.” He turned away. “I’ve got to remember to tell Fletch that he’s only being ‘crotchety’ when he decides to smash his next competitor into the dust.” There was still a lingering smile on his face as he glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll send in your nurse to wash your face and help you brush your teeth.” He waved his hand vaguely. “And all that. Fletch didn’t want you to wake up to a strange face, so he relegated her to a chair in the hall.” He shook his head. “Hell, the only reason he let me sit with you was because he
had to take an important transatlantic telephone call.”

“Thank you. The nurse’s help will be wonderful.” She made a face. “I feel terribly untidy.”

“You’ll feel better soon.” He opened the door. “I’ll see you later. Okay?”