Don't Let Go (11 page)

Half an hour later, he spied Jordan and Silas moving jauntily down the hill, chased by their shadows, and a familiar tingling centered at his loins. Her slender thighs, the way her hair swung around her shoulders, the watchful quality in her eyes as she looked up at him, elevated his desire to nearly unmanageable proportions.

If she didn’t come to him soon of her own will there was no telling what he might do.

“I rode on a horse!” Silas shouted as he galloped onto the pier, imaginary gelding between his legs. “Agatha let me ride with her.”

“Who’s Agatha?” Solomon called down, as Jordan approached the gangplank.

“My niece. She’s six, like Silas.”

“You put two six-year-olds on the back of a horse?” he asked, wanting clarification.

“I knew you’d have something sarcastic to say,” she snapped, glaring up at him. “How about, thank you, Jordan, for giving my son a unique experience? I’m sure he wouldn’t get that much sitting in a day-care facility.” Her spark of temper made him realize she’d probably slept as little as he had last night. They were both stewing for a fight. Lovely.

“Thank you,” he growled.

She remained stiffly where she stood. At last she showed him the plastic bag in her hands. “We ate at my sister’s, but she sent home leftovers for you. Fried catfish.”

His stomach rumbled. “I’ll be right down.”

After wolfing down his dinner, Solomon felt moderately less savage. He joined the twosome in the living room, throwing himself down on the sofa to watch their game of checkers. Jordan lay on her stomach on the rug. Solomon’s gaze settled on the lush curve of her bottom and remained there.

Silas trounced Jordan three times in a row. It was entirely possible that she let him win, although she stifled several enormous yawns. Her heavy-lidded gaze, when she finally deigned to look up at him, snatched his attention from her backside.

“What has gotten into you?” she finally demanded. “You’re brooding like a bear.”

Silas giggled.

Solomon considered whether to tell her or not. Maybe the news was daunting enough to give her a reality check. “The soldiers I trained in Venezuela have transferred their loyalty to the Populists,” he announced, watching her face carefully.

Her expression didn’t change, although some secret thought seemed to scurry behind the indigo-blue of her eyes. “Are you being called upon to do something about that?” she asked carefully.

“No,” he answered. “Not yet, anyway. But this will make it harder for me to find someone to get Miguel out.”

“I see,” she said, not sounding terribly disappointed.

He eyed her more closely. Her creased brow reflected concern, and concern was certainly merited, but he expected something more.

“I hope you’re not still thinking of going back, yourself,” he warned, speaking softly so as not to alarm Silas. The boy watched them worriedly, dividing his attention between them.

Jordan didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t even look at him.

Solomon’s concern spiked to new heights. “Jordan,” he said firmly. “With the Elite Guard backing the ex-president, there’s no stopping the Populists. Do you understand?”

She finally looked at him, her eyes flashing with hurt and outrage. “I’m not stupid, Solomon,” she replied. Color suffused her face and her eyes grew bright.

“I wasn’t implying that you were,” he said, gentling his tone. “I just want you to realize that you can’t do this by yourself. I’m going to help you. I just need time.”

“I don’t have time!” she cried, startling all of them. She leapt to her feet. “I’m sorry, Silas, I can’t play anymore,” she apologized hoarsely. She walked quickly into the bathroom, shut and locked the door.

“
Damn it,
” Solomon growled, aware that Silas was looking at him with big, wide eyes. He drew a steadying breath and, with forced pleasantness, asked his son, “Would you like me to play with you?”

Silas’s dismay evaporated. “Sure,” he answered with delight.

Solomon went down on the rug, which was still warm from Jordan’s skin. He arranged his checker pieces with one ear cocked to the sounds in the bathroom. Other than the shower running, he couldn’t hear a thing, and yet he knew she was in there, pining for Miguel. Her heart ached, and there was nothing he could do about it—except move mountains to make her smile again.

That thought brought him up short. He postponed his move on the checkerboard, pretending to ponder the results of his actions as he asked himself why Jordan’s emotional state meant anything to him.

Was it merely that his conscience bothered him, since he was the reason she’d become separated from Miguel in the first place?

Or was it more than that? Something that had to do with who she was, how she made him feel?

He swallowed heavily, thrusting aside the terrifying thought that Jordan was carrying his heart out to sea, and he could no longer even see the shoreline.

With four days to go before her scheduled flight, Jordan swung by her condominium to check her mailbox. If Miguel’s dossier did not arrive on time, all her plans would have to be scrapped.

Licking tiny beads of sweat off her upper lip, she inserted her key into one of the many cubicles, whispered a prayer, and slowly opened it.

A thick envelope took up most of the space inside.

With a cry of relief, she pulled it out and glanced at the return address. Then she clutched it to her heart and let tears of both joy and regret fill her closed eyes, careful not to let Silas see them as he sat in her air-conditioned car.

She’d waited a year for this packet to be ready. And now that it was in her hands, she savored the possibility that soon Miguel would be in her arms, also, where he belonged—
if
she could actually pull his adoption off the way she planned
.

With trembling fingers, she tore the envelope open and riffled through the contents. At the top were Señora Muñoz’s instructions, carefully typed in less-than-proper English for her to follow. As she skimmed them, her mouth went dry.

Once in the country, make your way to Puerto Ayacucho using any means of transportation available. They will be limited.
She’d typed the number of a lawyer by the name of Lorenzo.
He lives in Puerto Ayacucho and has agreed to meet you at La Catedral Maria Auxiliadora. Once he has received your check and signed his portion of the paperwork, you must make your way with the boy to Caracas, where the immigration office at the U.S. embassy will sign the immigration forms. Only then will the airlines allow Miguel to leave the country with you.

This might have been easy a year ago, considered Jordan. But Solomon’s disheartening news the other night filled her with cold foreboding. Bringing home Miguel in the limited time allowed by her visa was going to be a serious test of her resolve.

Sliding the dossier back in its envelope, she carried her mail to the car and slipped it under the driver’s seat, so that Silas, who sat in back on a booster, didn’t see it.

What would Solomon do if he found out she was going through with her plans, regardless? Would he even forgive her for leaving him and Silas in the lurch? And why, damn it, did it matter to her if he forgave her or not?

“Mornin’, Jordan!” Silas’s cheery greeting roused Jordan from a night of terrifying dreams in which she and Miguel had been chased by soldiers while trying to escape Venezuela. With a groan, she came to one elbow to wipe sleep from her aching eyes.

The knowledge that she was leaving soon had driven her anxiety to unprecedented levels. It filled her with mixed regret, dread, and—yes—fragile hope.

With rain coming down in sheets outside the octagonal window and Silas squirming through his lessons, Jordan gave in to her scattered thoughts and took him to the movies.

By the time she and Silas stepped aboard the boathouse that afternoon, soaking wet from their dash through the rain, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back in her bunk and sleep. She’d even gotten used to the sound of sloshing water.

But Solomon was home from work and apparently in a cheerful mood. “Let’s go out,” he suggested, with a look that saw more than she wanted him to. “I want to take Silas to the aquarium.”

All Jordan wanted was to put her face in a pillow and forget the daunting task ahead of her. “I’ll stay here,” she said. “Go ahead and take Silas.”

“But I want you to come,” Silas protested. He slipped his hand into hers and tugged her toward the door.

Guilt nipped Jordan’s conscience. She felt like she was abandoning Silas to get to Miguel. Her day was a wash anyway. Not even Solomon could make it any worse.

But, surprisingly, he made it better. Jordan spent the next three hours watching in amazement as the surly senior chief became a lighthearted companion and father. He and Silas laughed at the otters in the tank outside the aquarium. Once inside, he whisked Silas past the marsh exhibits straight to the big tank full of sharks and fishes.

A great white drifted past the glass, making Silas squeal. They watched in glee as it gobbled up a smaller fish. Jordan found herself smiling wryly.

Silas begged to pet the baby stingrays. For forty-five minutes, he watched them slip fluidly under his palm.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Jordan asked, mistrustful of the little critters.

“They clip their barbs,” Solomon assured her. He stepped behind her and surreptitiously pinched her nipple. “Like this.”

She gasped and swung around to elbow him, but with a boyish grin, he dodged her reprisal.

The grin left her reeling. Who’d have guessed that Solomon had a playful side? The last thing she needed was for him to appeal to her on another level. Her desire for him was enough of a distraction.

They wandered to the next exhibit to watch a documentary on sharks. It was dark. With no seats in the room, they had to stand. Silas’s gaze was glued to the revolving screen and the mako shark circling them. “Makos are the only species of shark that are warm-blooded,” announced the narrator. “This allows them to live in arctic waters.”

Who’d have guessed?
thought Jordan, waiting for her chance to get even. As the shark opened his mouth to attack, she pinched Solomon—hard—right where a love handle would have been, if he had one. He snared her wrist before she had a chance to pull her hand back and hauled her to him, locking her against his bigger body. Jordan, privately pleased to be his prisoner, pretended to struggle.

His smile flashed in the darkness. “You shouldn’t tease a shark,” he whispered.

“Let me go,” she hissed back, shoving him halfheartedly. His rock-solid frame, that unique musky scent of his, made her heat with desire. Oddly, the day’s stressors seemed to augment her sexual appetite.

She crowded helplessly closer, pressing herself against the solid length of his thigh, gasping with delight as his hand came up and covered her right breast. Relying on the shadows and his averted face to conceal his actions, Solomon fondled her. Jordan shivered. Her nipple swelled and peaked, jutting toward his palm with secret abandon.

For the next ten minutes, he treated her to a massage, from her shoulders to her buttocks, kneading and molding away the tension until she was little more than a puddle of longing—and his for the taking.

When the movie ended, he released her, adjusting himself with a crooked smile. He left her swaying on her feet as he moved away to collect Silas.

By the time they returned to the houseboat, Jordan’s worries about traveling to Venezuela had faded behind the realization that she and Solomon were going to have sex tonight. There was no ignoring the signs. He’d made his intentions perfectly clear, and she lacked any willpower to deny him.

Tonight she would be a creature of instinct and compulsion. What did it matter when, within days, she might be dead?

While Solomon read
Treasure Island
and tucked Silas in, she showered and dressed as usual. She descended briefly to kiss the boy good night. “I’ll see you upstairs,” she informed his father breezily.

The scorching look that followed her had her prickling with anticipation. She found she couldn’t just sit and wait in the living area. Crawling into his bed was just too obvious. So, she slipped outside to cool her overheated skin.

Chapter Eleven

The summer rainstorm had departed, yet the air remained saturated with the scent of wet leaves. Jordan approached the rail to eye the waxing moon. A hoot owl loosed a hopeful call, and far away, another answered.

A chorus of frogs and insects serenaded Jordan’s stroll to the rear of the boat. The wide inlet reminded her of how Solomon had taught her to think through her fear. She had a sinking feeling that lesson would come in handy very soon now.

She found herself climbing the metal steps that zigzagged up to the pilot’s station—the bridge, Solomon called it. There, the view was intoxicating, especially when she heard Solomon’s muffled footfalls pursuing her.

She whirled to face him, and his gaze pinned her to the ship’s wheel as he gained the last few steps.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she stalled, her heartbeat accelerating. His naked chest, awash with moonlight, made him look like the god Poseidon. He wore only soft gray sweatpants, and nothing, she would wager, underneath.

He stalked her, and her breath backed up in her lungs as he tipped her chin up. “Waiting for me,” he guessed, searching her face. “Am I right?”

She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. “Yes,” she admitted.

With a brief, triumphant smile, he lowered his head and kissed her.

Whimpering with what sounded like relief, Jordan threw her arms around him, surrendering to the tide of passion that rose up and engulfed them.

He drew her fiercely into his embrace, and she coiled one leg around him, then the other, supported by the ship’s wheel at her back.

“Say it, Jordan,” Solomon exhorted between deep, hungry kisses.

“Say what?” she asked, trembling uncontrollably.

“Tell me that you want me,” he added, nudging her just where she wanted him most.

“I want you,” she repeated, but her heart froze in dismay as she realized it was more than that. This wasn’t about the compulsion to procreate the species. “Right here, right now,” she added helplessly.

She could feel his heart thundering beneath her palm as he whisked off her tank top. His eyes blazed for a moment, then he bent down to nuzzle her. With movements that were both possessive and gentle, he drew her deep into his mouth. His hands dove beneath the waistband of her pajama bottoms, pulling her off the ship’s wheel in order to undress her completely.

In a single, sweeping motion, he exposed her to the moon’s regard and the wind’s caress.

Come what may, she was going to let this happen, Jordan realized. And in the morning, once the yearning was fulfilled, she could only hope that her heart would still be wholly hers.

His hands cradling her face brought her eyes open.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he murmured, catching her off guard with his romantic-sounding utterance. His taut, admiring gaze made her feel exotic, slightly endangered, and wickedly alluring.

She surprised herself by sinking gracefully to her knees, dragging down his sweatpants.

The need to consume him had her circling him with one hand, cupping him below, and driving her lips as far down him as she could. He whispered an archaic-sounding curse and fisted her hair with hands that trembled. Jordan smiled.

If she was going to lose control then, by God, so was he. She would not be alone in this risky venture.

She repeated the assault until he stayed her movements, dragging her up with a plea for mercy. He swung her around, so that her backside fit against the curve of his hips. His breath rasped in her ear as he gave his hands freedom to roam over her body, his desire burning like a brand between them.

Reaching around her, his fingers slipped between her legs. He stroked her, attentive to what pleased her, pausing with each clenching of her innermost muscles to thrust a finger into her wet warmth.

“Tell me what you want, Jordan,” he whispered, as she arched against his hand, clamoring for more.

“You,” she panted.

“You want me to what?” The smooth head of his erection nudged her opening. “Say it.”

Shaking with the force of her need, craving the feel of him inside her, she whispered what he wanted to hear.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew she wanted more.

She shied away from analyzing just how much, concentrating instead on the feel of him surging and retreating, stroking and seeking. He drove into her, deeper and deeper, clasping her hip with one hand, her breast with another, fiercely enough to let her know he suffered the same irrational compulsion to burn in the flame as she did.

The realization made her climax. Stars exploded behind her eyelids as the sweetest, keenest sensations wrung her womb. If not for Solomon holding her up, muffling groans against her neck, she would have crumpled.

They remained locked together, their gusting breaths subsiding. Jordan’s heart beat heavily against the palm that cupped her breast. Too weak to pull away, she relied on the wall of his body to remain standing, gazed up at the stars pulsing in the cobalt sky.
Don’t let it end,
a part of her whispered, as she reveled in the ripples that resonated in the aftermath.

She clutched him in remembered pleasure, wringing another groan from him. He remained where he was, buried deep inside, in no more of a hurry, apparently, than she was to separate.

“Jordan,” he finally murmured in her ear. “Come to bed with me.” He gave a thrust that rekindled her yearning. “Say, yes,” he urged, his voice as much a persuasion as the fact that he was swelling again, reawakening her desire.

She resisted his propensity to take control. She had to believe she could navigate these waters and still come out whole. No man would ever make a fool of her again. But, for now, desire outweighed the considerations of her heart.

Reality doused Solomon the instant he pushed into the houseboat’s dark interior. He’d forgotten to use a condom—again! He had sixty-four of them beside his bed, but he hadn’t thought to bring a single one along when he’d joined Jordan on the deck. That meant they’d had unprotected sex two times now.

He pulled up short beside the bathroom door. “You want to shower first?” he asked, not knowing if it would help. It couldn’t hurt.

She glanced at him and shrugged. “Okay.”

He placed their clothing on the back of the toilet, turned on the water, and then hit the light switch, using the dimmer to conceal his sudden concern. He didn’t fool her, though. She was looking at him intently.

“If you’re worried about the lack of protection,” she said, reading his mind, “you don’t have to be. I can’t get pregnant the normal way.”

His gaze slid curiously to her soft-curving hips. She looked perfectly equipped to him. “What’s wrong with you?”

She flinched at his tactlessness and dove behind the shower curtain.

Kicking himself, he followed more slowly. “What I mean is, you look perfectly good to me,” he amended, joining her.

“I had endometriosis when I was younger,” she explained, her voice muffled as she bent over to reach for the soap.

“But . . . you implied that you’d been pregnant before.” The day she’d driven the boat, she’d mentioned something like that.

“I was. But it took the help of a fertility specialist,” she admitted, averting her face. “I had to stay in bed most of the time, and I still lost the baby.”

The wobble in her voice had him reaching for her. He wanted to chase off hurtful memories, yet all he could do was pull her water-slick body close and hold her tight. She held herself stiffly, at first, but then softened in his arms as the shower’s spray sluiced over them.

To Solomon’s consternation, protective and tender emotions held him in thrall. He wondered at the reason for them. Just how far out to sea was Jordan carrying him that he no longer cared about the shoreline? He cautioned himself to break free of her before he found himself disillusioned.

Not that Jordan was like Candace, a woman too self-absorbed to be content with one man. Jordan would be faithful, no question, as long as her man treated her well. For a brief instant, Solomon pictured himself in that role. Silas would have a mother and a father, perhaps even a sibling if Miguel’s adoption went through.

He jerked his imaginings to a halt. Love was a fabrication. He’d proved that time and time again, leaving his lovers without a backward glance, relieved to be free of them. The same thing would happen when his lust for Jordan subsided. And when that time came, he’d be the one to end their affair, keeping his heart safely intact.

“Tell me about your childhood, Solomon,” Jordan whispered hours later, as they lay in his captain’s bed, limbs entwined, sheets smelling of shared passion.

He grunted noncommittally. “It’s not a happy story.”

She had sensed that already. “Tell me,” she urged.

He heaved a sigh and rolled toward her so that they lay hip to hip, nose to nose.

“My father was a fisherman. He fished off the coast for mackerel, mostly, and he was gone a great deal. My mother was an English teacher. She loved the Romantic Period, best of all. She read me books while we waited for my father to return from his work. Only, one winter, he didn’t come back.”

“How old were you then?” Jordan whispered.

“Eight. My mother pined for him. She went slowly mad.”

“You mean, she lost her mind?”

“Aye.”

“Oh, Solomon.” She envisioned him, looking much like Silas. He must have felt orphaned, like he’d lost both parents. “What happened to her?”

“She overdosed on Valium,” he said flatly.

“Oh, no.” She put an arm around him, surprised when he willingly accepted her gesture of comfort.

“My grandparents took me in,” he continued after a moment. “They owned a store in Camden, and from that day on I worked after school, stocking shelves, sweeping. I had to sneak away to read my books, which they considered a waste of time. And I swam,” he recollected. “I swam in water so cold it made the Bay of Coronado feel like a bathtub.”

“Isn’t that in California?”

“Where I did my SEAL training,” he corroborated. “I was a soft intellectual trying to make it through the most rigorous selection process in the world. The one thing I had going for me was my swimming. I excelled in exercises in the water. The rest I had to work for.”

She squeezed the dense muscle of his upper arm. “It feels like you worked pretty hard.”

“Aye,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s ironic?” he added.

“What is?”

“That my strength is your weakness. You’re afraid of water,” he pointed out.

“I almost drowned,” she admitted. “In a cow pond of all things, so shallow that I could’ve stood up if I hadn’t panicked. My sister pulled me out, and I wasn’t even breathing. She gave me mouth-to-mouth, and then I threw up on her.”

He grunted in amusement. “This is the sister who owns the horse ranch?”

“Jillian. I worry about her,” Jordan reflected. “She’s widowed with two children and a baby on the way. I wish I were more of a help to her.”

“We all do what we can,” he murmured sleepily.

Wasn’t that the truth, Jordan considered, her heart weighted by the many hurdles before them. Jillian faced starting up a business and giving birth to a baby, all without a man at her side. Rafael Valentino had made himself scarce, lately. And she, Jordan, faced even more menacing obstacles in her bid to rescue Miguel from a country torn by revolution.

Lying in Solomon’s arms, she suffered the impulse to unburden herself, to tell him of her plans because backing out now might mean never seeing Miguel again. She opened her mouth to broach the subject, only to be cut off by his soft snore.

Another time, perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Emotional intimacy was not supposed to follow their earthy, physical union. She might just regret telling him her plans lest he find some way to frustrate them. “Good night,” she whispered, kissing his shoulder lightly before yielding to the pull of exhaustion.

Ellie divided a panicked glance between the road signs bisecting the dark highway up ahead.
Which way do I go?

“Christopher,” she called, careful not to wake up the baby and Caleb, both asleep in the backseat. “Christopher!”

But her ten-year-old navigator was sound asleep.

Hitting her directional signal, Ellie guided her car into the breakdown lane. The instant her tires dropped onto the rougher pavement, steam bloomed out from under her hood to cloak her windshield. She braked abruptly, terrified of striking the guardrail that divided the highway from a copse of trees.

The car came to a shuddering halt. As the steam rose and thinned, Ellie found herself pinned between a forest and intermittent but fast-moving cars.

Releasing her held breath, she unfurled her white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel and glanced at the boys to find them still asleep. Then she eased from her seat to round the steaming hood. It wasn’t like she could fix her engine in the dark, even if she had the right parts.

God, you’ve got to help me,
she thought, lifting eyes that burned with exhaustion toward the starry sky. She had thirty-eight dollars in her pocket and miles to go before she could let her guard down—if ever.

But how was she going to get her family to Virginia if her car broke down?

The sharp snapping of a stick and the sound of something rustling through the woods had Ellie dashing for her door. She jumped inside, locking it behind her. With her heart beating fast, she peered through the beams of her headlights, waiting fearfully.

But nothing happened. She felt foolish for being so afraid. She’d lived in the country, knew what kind of critters lurked in the woods. Regretfully, she turned off the ignition, not knowing if her car would even start come daylight.

The quiet that enveloped them was stifling. She cracked her window to let in the warm summer air, the sound of chirping crickets. It wasn’t safe to remain in the vehicle, right there on the side of the highway, but what could she do—haul three sleeping children out to sleep in the wet ditch?

Wriggling across the front seat, she put an arm around her eldest son, fighting the urge to cling to him. With her cheek on the headrest, she closed her eyes. A car roared by, and her eyes sprang open.