Just a Kiss Away (35 page)

“Lollie!” he yelled, stepping over the wreckage and into something slimy and white. “Lollie!” He moved deeper into the shell of the hut, looking all over for her, finding only a five-foot hole in the back wall.

Sam stepped through it and saw her crumpled form barely eight feet away. He rushed over and knelt beside her. Her breath was the shallow breath of the unconscious. “Lollie, answer me. Come on, wake up.”

She didn’t move. He ran his hands over her, eyeing the way she lay on the ground. Very carefully, he slid his arms under her, picked her up, and strode toward her bungalow. His gaze never left her pale face. She had no color. Her eyelids were closed and white. Soot smudged her cheeks, which were covered with scratches and nicks. A small trickle of blood dripped from her split lip, and her blond hair was singed and black and five inches shorter.

Is she all right?” Jim came running up, followed by Gomez and the other soldiers.

“I don’t know. She’s unconscious.” Sam walked up the steps of her bungalow. Jim opened the door, and Sam stepped inside and carried her to the cot. “Get me some water and a towel, will you?” He watched the rise and fall of her chest, assuring himself that she was breathing fine. He looked at her face, at her singed hair, and he wanted to kick himself. He should have followed his first instincts and locked her in her hut until he could take her back to her father. He’d never met anyone who could create more havoc than this one irritating little woman.

Jim set the water bucket and a towel by the bed, drawing Sam’s attention away from Lollie’s drawn face. “Thanks.”

He dipped the towel in the bucket and began washing off the soot and dried blood.

“Is there anything I can do?” Jim asked.

“No, just see to the men for me, would you?”

“Sure.”

Sam finished cleaning her face, arms, and neck, then he wrung out the towel, folded it, and placed it on her forehead. He had time, lots and lots of time, to just sit there and watch her, plenty of time to castigate himself.

She’d talked him into letting her do something he knew she couldn’t handle. Of course there wasn’t much this woman
could
handle . . . but then he amended that thought. She had managed to trek through the jungle, even occasionally kept up with him. She hadn’t become hysterical except that one time at the bay when she realized that they had missed the ransom exchange.

She did have something that drove her, a spirit within her that contradicted what she should have been, a spoiled, pampered little rich girl who cared only about herself. That was the label he’d first given her, but he’d been wrong. She wasn’t a snob and a spoiled brat. She was someone who needed assurance, acceptance, encouragement. She genuinely wanted to be liked, and yet something about her said she didn’t expect anyone to.

Why? Why would a girl who had everything—money, family, social connections—have so little self-esteem? Granted, he hadn’t done anything to help her, but he knew he wasn’t the reason she felt that way. He was, however, the reason she was hurt, lying there so still and making him forget about guerrillas and guns and greed.

What he did feel at this moment was an intense inability to help her, and once again he felt guilty. How she could inspire guilt in him he didn’t know, but she managed it when no other person on this earth ever could. He cared. And he didn’t much like it, either. He believed that caring about something colored one’s judgment, and Sam prided himself on his ability to make decisions objectively.

Yet as he looked at her, he was overcome by such a strong sense of protectiveness that it almost made him humble. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt protective toward something, if he ever had at all. From the first moment she’d stumbled and stabbed her way into his life he’d felt it, even if he could only now admit it.

He had spent his rotten, mercenary life protecting nothing but his own butt, and that was just a game with him. It gave him a thrill to stare death in the face, spit at it, and still come out the winner. But he got no thrill when Lollie was involved. All he got was a feeling of intense fear.

He drew in a deep breath with that realization. His gaze drifted from her to the window, and as he stared outside, watching the sky turn pink with the sunset, the same shade of pink as that frilly dress and the deadly parasol, he wondered if maybe he was the one who needed protection.

She shook her head.

He set them down on the bed and held out his hand to her. “Get up.”

She grabbed it and stood, careful to put her weight on her good ankle.

He slid his arm around her and pulled her close to his side. Immediately she felt the warmth from his body. She wrapped her right arm around his waist and slid her other hand over his chest, trying to steady herself.

His sharp intake of breath pierced the silence of the small room. He placed a warm palm over her hand and slid it down to his ribs before
he
bent and picked up the crutches.

“Here.” He handed her one. “Put this under your other arm.”

She did.

He gripped her upper arm in one hand and slid the other crutch under her arm. “Hold on to these small handles.” He placed her hand around a smaller piece of bamboo that stuck out about halfway down the thick pole.

“Now lift the crutches and move them forward.” His mouth was so close to her ear that his words brushed over it. She shivered. To avoid his breath on her ear and the way it made her feel, she planted the crutches a good foot ahead of her.

“That’s right . . . . Now, put your weight on the handles and swing yourself forward.”

She did.

“It worked!” she said, smiling as she turned back toward Sam. “Watch.” She did it again. “It’s easy, isn’t it?” Then she moved back toward him, taking a big step—too big a step.

The left crutch slipped on the slick wood of the floor, and she lost her balance. Her crutch clattered to the floor. Sam caught her.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him.

He looked at her for the longest time and in the most uneasy way. He had no smile on his face, and yet his eye wasn’t hard or tinged with that constant wry cynicism it usually had whenever she did something foolish.

She didn’t know if the lack of that cynical look should worry her or not. He reached up and fingered the ragged ends of her burned hair.

“I must look awful.” She averted her eyes.

He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face until she had to meet his gaze. He searched her face—probably looking at her bruises, she thought. She’d seen her black-and-blue cheek, scratched face, and puffy lip in the mirror.

“Yeah, you do.” His palm opened to cup her cheek, and his thumb drifted over her swollen lip.

Honest Sam. She should have been offended, but she wasn’t. She was too fascinated by the feel of his thumb. He began to lower his head slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. He’s going to kiss me, she thought, a surge of pure joy filling her chest. Her eyelids felt heavy and seemed to want to drift closed. She willed them to stay open, watching him and waiting for their lips to touch, waiting for that brief whiff of his warm male breath to graze her mouth.

Barely an inch away from a kiss, he suddenly stopped. It happened so fast she blinked. He pulled back, took a deep, relieved breath, and turned to pick up her crutch. He stuck it back under her arm, then turned away again, leaving her with a cool, empty feeling. She took a deep breath, looking away while her mind raced to figure out why he’d stopped. Her gaze lit on the mirror, and she remembered her reflection; then she didn’t blame him. She looked worse than Jim had after that fight with Sam.

“I’m sorry about the cooking hut,” she said to his back. He rammed his hands in his pockets. “It needed a new roof anyway.”

There was nothing more to say. They both just stood there, silent. He spun around as if he had something important to say. The door banged open, and Jim walked in with Medusa perched on his shoulder.

“Raaaape! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!”

Sam’s heated gaze met hers. Her mind flashed with the memory of the last time Medusa had screeched that silly phrase. She could feel the flush heat her face and could see the memory on Sam’s face, too.

“I’m sorry I ever taught her that,” Jim said.

“So am I.” Sam’s stare never left hers.

The temperature in the room rose quicker than the tide at a full moon. She knew she should look away, but she didn’t want to.

“The note’s here.”

“What note?” Sam asked distractedly, still holding her with a look that made her wish Jim would leave.

“The note from her father. He’ll meet you in Santa Cruz in four days.”

She looked at Jim, his words finally penetrating her head. She was leaving, going back to her family. The oddest thing happened. Her stomach sank at the idea, the same way it sank whenever she was in a boat. She looked back at Sam, wanting to see his reaction. He had none. That hot tinge of longing was gone, replaced by the cynical look she hated.

“Well, well, I guess Miss Lah-Roo is going home to her daddy.” And without another glance her way, Sam turned and left.

“You know a bottle
never pulled a man out of a hole.”

Sam scowled at Jim. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I know you. You’ve got trouble.”

Sam lifted the bottle to his lips and chugged down a few burning gulps. “Just what is this remarkable revelation you’ve come to?”

“Woman trouble.”

“That woman is trouble all right. In four more days she’ll be back with her daddy and out of my hair.”

“Then why are you swilling that stuff?”

“I’m celebrating.”

“And I’m the angel Gabriel,” Jim muttered.

“Since when have you become my keeper?”

“Since you’ve been acting like you needed one.”

Sam slammed one booted foot on the seat of the chair next to him and stared at the opening in the top of the whiskey bottle. “Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“Nope, unless I slink over to Lollie’s room and give her a thrill before she leaves.”

Sam’s booted foot hit the floor. “You touch her and I swear—” He stopped, realizing he’d given himself away.

“What?” Jim gave him a knowing smile.

“Nothing. Just stay away from her.”

Jim whistled something that sounded a lot like the Wedding March.

“Shut up.”

Jim did, but smiled as he poured himself a drink, then leaned back in his own chair, silently watching Sam over the rim of his glass. There was a distinct gleam in Cassidy’s green eyes, the same gleam the vampire snake had worn when it cornered Sam.

He didn’t like it, so he drank from the bottle again; then he wouldn’t have to look at Jim.

“Is she really that hot inside?”

Sam spit whiskey a good three feet, coughed, pinned Jim with a one-eyed stare that had brought others to their knees, and said, “I’m going to kill that bird.”