Just a Kiss Away (15 page)

She didn’t understand him or this confusing, rough, fast world of his. It scared her silly. Not one brother was here, and right now she’d have welcomed even Jed’s familiar face. Although he was the hardest on her, Lollie knew he cared about her.

Now all she had was Sam, and to Sam Forrester she was nothing. He didn’t understand that she didn’t know how to do things here. Everything was so different. She needed desperately to have something familiar, something normal, around her. The only thing close to being familiar was Sam. He was a man, like her brothers, and an American.

He prodded her with the rifle. “Move! That is if you want to see your daddy.”

A very rude male American, she amended. Pricked by his attitude, she dug up some good old southern pride, stuck her chin up and took off through the brush on wobbly, heel-sinking steps. Less than five feet into her pride walk she fell face down into a wet, sharp-smelling bush. She struggled to get her footing and managed to wiggle back far enough for him to pull her out.

He didn’t. The king of the Chicago slums walked right past her . . . the damned arrogant Yankee.

But more comical than her jaw contortions was the look on her face. She blinked a few times, her eyes watery, and her mouth puckered.

“The salt’s good for you.” He gnawed off another bite, then waved the beef strip around to emphasize his words. “Keeps you from getting dehydrated in the tropical heat.”

Her cheek bulged from the wad. “Mmmah aah haav fumm wahher, poweez?”

He tried not to laugh out loud.

“Huh? I can’t undertand you.” He understood her, but this was just too good to pass up.

She shifted the wad to the other side of her mouth, frustration on her face and her eyes watering from the salt. “Wahher, poweez!”

Sam waited, trying to look thoughtful.

She pointed at his canteen belt. “Wahher! Wahher!”

“Oh . . . water.” He snapped his fingers.

She nodded vigorously.

He stood, unhooked the canteen, and handed it to her. She grabbed it quicker than a Quincy Street pickpocket. She twisted the cap, but couldn’t get it off.

She looked up at him, still standing above her. Her face was desperate. “Uhhpann, poweez . . . harwee!”

It took every bit of his willpower to keep from tormenting her longer. The expression on her face touched some small bit of humanity buried somewhere inside him. He took the canteen from her and unscrewed the cap.

Those ladylike manners of hers forgotten, she grabbed it and took a swig. She chewed briefly, then took a deep breath and swallowed. From the size of the wad, Sam was sure it must have hit her stomach like a mortar weight.

She gasped and took another gulp of water.

“Better eat up there, Lollipop. We need to go on.” Sam glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge how much time they had before nightfall. There wasn’t much. He’d been wrong about how long it would take them to get there. He’d overestimated her. She was even slower than he’d thought.

“I’ve had enough, thank you.” She handed him the meat and the canteen.

He returned the jerky to the pack and hooked the canteen back on his belt, then turned to give her a hand up. She’d turned around and now picked at her teeth with a fingernail.

“Let’s go.”

She sat as straight as bamboo, her hand whipping back into her lap. Her face flushed with a guilty look that said he’d caught her doing something wrong.

“I don’t mind if you pick your teeth.” He hauled her to her feet.

She dusted off her bottom with a few angry strokes. “I wasn’t picking my teeth.”

“Sure.”

“I need a toothbrush,” she said, as if that one implement could solve all her problems.

He grabbed her hand and started through the brush, moving faster than they had before. “I’ll make sure we stop at the next Marshall Field and buy you one, along with a silver tea set and some of those lah-dee-dah little cups.”

She mumbled that she couldn’t wait until they got to that bay and away from him.

“I feel exactly the same way,” he said over his shoulder, then walked twice as fast as before.

She stumbled. “Can’t you slow down?”

“No.” He dragged her through a clump of head-high palmilla trees.

She muttered something about obnoxious Yankees who didn’t behave like gentlemen.

He let go of the bent palm frond he’d been gallantly holding aside.

It whacked her right in the face. She gasped in outrage, but he ignored it, pulling her with him at a full military run.

The sun sat atop
the glowing water in a blazing pink fireball, the brilliant colors of a Pacific sunset—golden orange, burning pink, cool lavender, and deep dark purple—staining into the immanence of a night-black sky. Around the pearlescent waters of the bay were white sand beaches and thick, vivid jungle backed by a jagged barricade of mountains bruised purple from the fast-setting sun.

Lollie sagged against a tree, trying to catch her breath and watching Sam pace the white sands. Her lungs burned so from running that she felt as if the hot sun were setting in her raspy throat. Sweat dripped down her face, mosquito bites made her arms itch as if she’d slept in poison oak, and her leg muscles ached like they were bruised. And her poor feet. They felt blistered and raw.

“Can you see the boat?” She sat down and raked her broken fingernails up one itchy arm.

He continued to pace, stopping once to kick at some sand. “It’s not here.”

“Are you sure?”

He stooped and glared at her, his face only inches away while he pointed toward the calm, empty bay. “Do you see a goddamn boat anywhere out there?”

Her hope dying, she looked down at the sand and mumbled, “I just thought maybe I couldn’t see it.”

“You can’t see it, Miss Lah-Roo, because it’s not there. We missed it.” He stormed an angry ten-foot path of frustration, talking to himself about what the hell he was going to do with her. From the angry tone of his voice and the purple color of his neck—a color that had nothing to do with the sunset—she could tell that he wouldn’t welcome her next question. She wanted to know what they would do next, but for the sake of her own well-being, she wouldn’t ask just now. It wasn’t the time. So she counted the bites on her arm instead.

He muttered something about being sitting ducks and said they might as well shoot themselves because they were as good as dead. She’d just reached bite number twenty-two when he stopped pacing suddenly, spun around, and took the rifle off his shoulder.

He lifted it up, and she faced the gun barrel. Her breath caught. He was gonna shoot her! He rammed some latch thing back with a deadly click.

She slammed her eyes shut. Her back went ramrod straight, the muscles in her small body as taut as dulcimer strings. She prayed a last prayer for a lifetime of forgiveness, and tried not to scream.

The gun went off; she waited for the bullet.

I didn’t feel anything. Oh, my Gawd, I must be dead!

The gun went off again. She sagged against the tree, but still felt nothing. She opened one eye, expecting to see Saint Peter standing at those pearly gates.

All she saw was Sam’s broad back. He faced the bay, the rifle aimed straight up, and he fired a third shot, then appeared to scan the horizon for a long moment. She exhaled.

“Damn!” He slammed the rifle butt into the sand and turned around. “We missed them. All that goddamn running and we bloody missed them.”

Lollie looked out at the bay, the empty bay, and everything hit her at once. Her father hadn’t waited. She didn’t mean enough to him for him to wait for her. Or maybe—the thought brought on a stab of pain so sharp she was almost ill—maybe he hadn’t come at all.

Her heart settled somewhere in her tight throat. She was alone. Worse than alone, she was with Sam.

Suddenly the tears welled into her eyes. Sobs poured up from deep within her, and she slid bonelessly down the tree trunk, landing on the cool sand in an aching heap. She cried and cried and cried, and though from somewhere far away she could hear Sam swearing, she couldn’t stop the sobs.

She was alone, her brothers so far away they probably didn’t even know what was happening to her. And her father didn’t care about her. All the fears she’d harbored but refused to believe surfaced.

Her father had never come home to his daughter because he didn’t care to. She cried, wishing fervently that she had been a boy instead of a girl. Then he’d have come home. Then she wouldn’t be here on this awful island, stuck with a man who didn’t want the burden of her any more than her father did, and that final, crushing thought was just too much for her.

“Stop it, Lollie! Stop it!”
Sam strode toward her. He stood over her, watching her rock and wail. He didn’t want to slap her, although he was tempted.

He picked her up. She kicked and cried and squirmed, so he did the only thing he could.

He threw her in the bay.

Ignoring the splash, he turned and walked the few feet to shore and sat in the sand, waiting for her to come ashore wet but calmed down. She didn’t, but she was quieter. The wailing stopped, replaced with sputters and coughs. Her arms waved frantically above the water’s surface, and she sank like an anchor.

Christ!
Sam shot up and waded out to where she’d sunk. The water barely reached his shoulders, but neither did she. He reached down and hauled her off the bottom, bending so he could sling her around his shoulders. Then he waded back to the beach. He laid her on the still warm sand and worked the water out of her. She coughed and hacked until she finally just lay there, breathing normally, but obviously drained completely.

He watched her as she lay there and wondered if this woman was the retribution for every wrong thing he’d done in his hard life. If so, the punishment, in his mind, was much worse than any of the crimes.