Volcano (16 page)

“Our bags are right there on that damned ledge.”

Their bags. She hadn't even thought about them. Glancing down at her once elegant skirt, she shuddered. “Forget them. They're not worth your life.”

“You know what?” he asked thoughtfully, studying the gorge.

“Tell me when you get back here,” she urged.

“I don't think the road just washed away.”

She stared as he bent to examine something over the side of the fallen pavement. “Charlie, don't do this to me. Get back here immediately.”

Gingerly clinging to rocks, he turned to face her again, his heavy eyebrows pulled into an ominous frown.

“I think that explosion earlier was someone blowing out the road with dynamite.”

Dynamite! Penelope gripped her elbows as she tried to pull her mind back from the precipice they'd almost dived over. Surely no one would deliberately set explosives....

“Charlie, don't do this to me,” she shouted as he peered over the edge again. “Get back from there.” Nerves stretched taut, Penelope gritted her chattering teeth as Charlie hung there, examining some idiot dent in the rocks. Men had utterly no sense of danger.

Charlie pulled up a few rocks and inched backward to safer ground. “I can smell traces of explosives, and these rocks are still hot.”

“All right, we'll call the police. Just get away from that damned ravine.” She couldn't believe she was worrying over the jerk. If it hadn't been for him, they wouldn't be in this predicament. But he was her best route out of here now. “We'd better put up some kind of warning so no one else comes around this curve and falls in.”

Shoving rocks into his pocket, Charlie stood and dusted himself off as he glanced up and down the road. “This is mostly a farm road. Only the people who live here travel it. I'll pull some saplings across and stick a flag on them.”

Penelope didn't complain when he commandeered what remained of her jacket for “flags.” She just wanted out of here before she started thinking of all the implications of exploding roads. She wanted a hot shower and a cool bed. She wanted peace and quiet. She wanted her life back.

She shook her head in amazement as Charlie literally pulled trees up by the roots and positioned them across the road. She couldn't imagine too many people with the casual strength to just rip trees out of the ground.

Although he'd torn his shirt climbing out of the jeep and compounded the damage with his feats of strength, he had the decency to keep the damned thing on. His shoulders strained the seams as he wrenched the trees out of the loose dirt, but at least she didn't have to see him half-naked. She'd thought she'd grown out of her adolescent lust for muscles, but obviously something in her psyche remained unresolved on that particular matter.

She took a deep breath and attempted to calm her racing heart as Charlie finished his task and headed back in her direction. She prided herself on her logical mind. It was time to apply it. “Why would anyone blow up a road?” she asked in what she considered a calm voice.

Charlie wouldn't look her in the eye. He shrugged his big football player shoulders and tied the last flag on a high tree branch. Suspicion raised its ugly head. There was a hell of a lot more going on here than a missing foreman.

Ignoring her question, Charlie narrowed his eyes against the sun and gazed up the hillside. “We're not too far from Raul's old home-place. Let's check that out as long as we're here. Then we'll catch a ride from the other side.”

Maybe she was too calm. Maybe she should have hysterics. Maybe she should scream and rage and curse until he agreed to put her on the next bus or whatever into town. Maybe she should have her head examined.

Acknowledging the uselessness of that thought, Penelope resignedly pulled herself up, considered the ravages of her torn dress, and shrugged. “Sure, let's make this a game of one-upsmanship. Whatever you can do, I can do better. In sandals. And stockings.”

A sexy, totally disarming grin crossed Charlie's face as he looked her up and down. “I don't want you to do what I can do. I want you for something entirely different.”

His casual comment hit Penelope with the same breathless feeling as if he had slammed her to the ground and jumped on her. She couldn't believe she was even thinking about sex, under the circumstances, but she didn't think she'd mistaken the smoky look in Charlie's eyes. He wanted her.

“Come on, it's an easy climb. Tourists do it all the time.” He caught her hand and tugged her forward.

So, they were both shaken and not quite in their right minds. And maybe there was this electric thing popping and fizzing between them occasionally. He was just copping the usual male attitude and making it into something it wasn't to distract her. She certainly had no intention of doing anything stupid with this great ape. She'd long ago determined she wouldn't settle for anything less than a relationship that at least hinted of a future, and Charlie Smith had absolutely nothing to offer in that department.

But his big hand engulfing hers was reassuring as they strode over the rough terrain. He held back vines and crushed roots to clear a path for her as if they really were on a casual outing. In his own rough way, Charlie played the role of gentleman well. The mind-bending part was that she was beginning to accept him as he was. She, who never associated with anything less than a sensitive twenty-first century type in a pinstripe suit and white collar, had accepted that this Neanderthal didn't fit the mold, and—she didn't want to change him.

She must have hit her head on the windshield. Charlie was arrogant, overbearing, selfish, and single-minded. Most of the time she wanted to smack him. But he damned well knew what he wanted to do and how to do it and did it without complaint— crushing all in his path. She had to admire his determination.

As the route they took veered into rough wagon tracks and crudely tilled fields, Penelope dropped the subject. They clambered over rotting trees and through weeded tracks. The farms here had no giant combines and equipment sheds as they did back home. It looked as if some of them fields were still worked by mules. Considering the up-and-down terrain, she could understand the difficulty. The only thing these farmers had in their favor was the climate. Long seasons and plentiful water created garden jungles. Lush greenery covered the poor soil. Penelope couldn't be entirely certain whether they were weeds or vegetables, but the vines were plentiful.

Her espadrilles were covered with mud and soaked through by the time they reached the edge of the forest. Too mountainous for farming, this area of rain forest clung to the earth just as it had centuries ago. Trunks shot straight up to the canopy of leaves overhead. Vines crawled over the trunks. But the thickness of the shade prevented any dense underbrush. They had to watch for rocks and roots sticking from the ground, but the walk wasn't nearly as treacherous as she had feared.

Of course, if Raul came back here with any frequency, he could have cleared the brush, but she couldn't detect anything resembling an actual man-made path. She prayed Charlie knew where he was going.

As they climbed deeper into the interior, Penelope cast him an anxious glance. He hadn't said a word in forever. She could see tension knotting the muscles along his jaw. The hand clasping hers squeezed so tight at times, she thought he'd crush the bones.

She supposed if someone had blown up the only road to Raul's hideout, he had some right to be concerned. Things didn't look good for Charlie's foreman. Or Charlie.

She wondered briefly over Tammy's comment about her father. Surely a civilized man like Emile St. Philippe wouldn't stoop to murdering someone to keep him away from his daughter. Men like that arranged business deals, had people like Raul fired or trapped by the law or any of a dozen different half-legal stratagems. They didn't, however, usually resort to outright murder.

“The tree house used to be right around here somewhere,” Charlie muttered. “There was a big clearing….”

“How many years ago?” Penelope scoffed. “It could have grown over.”

“Maybe, but I think there was bare rock right under it.” Cautiously, he shoved aside tree branches, searching for a memory.

“I may not be a contractor, but it seems to me that building on bare rock might present a problem.”

“Not to Raul. And not for this kind of construction. There are no utilities up here. It would just be a shack....”

He froze between two trees, and Penelope nearly walked into his back. Biting her lip in irritation, she stood on her toes and peered over his shoulder.

At first, she saw nothing but a small glade in the midst of towering fern trees. As she turned her focus from the greenery to the small open space, she discovered the reason for Charlie's silence.

Black ashes. Already sprouting vines and weed, they looked more a smear of dark rock than anything significant.

She considered holding Charlie back, telling him it was better to assume these were the remains of someone's campfire. But even as she considered it, she knew it was not only a stupid thought, but it was impossible to carry out. Wild bulls wouldn't stop Charlie now.

He surged forward, swatting aside leaves and branches, his jaw so tense she thought he'd break it. Reluctantly, she followed in his wake.

Up close, she could see the charred remains of stout timbers, bits of broken glass, and scorched metal. Charlie circled the overgrown perimeter, picking up a broken tree limb and poking at the logs. Apparently deciding it was safe, he strode through the charcoal into the center and began heaving timbers aside. Penelope didn't follow.

She knew the instant he discovered what she had feared. He bellowed a roar of anguish so gut-wrenching, tears sprang to her eyes.

Reaching down, Charlie flung aside a beam large enough to be physically impossible to move. Penelope caught a gleam of white, the flutter of tattered cloth, and a glimpse of something shiny before Charlie closed his fingers around it, and ripped it from whatever held it down.

Moaning, he gripped the piece of gold and twisted it in the sun. Penelope thought she saw tears glittering in his eyes before he shoved the damaging evidence into his pocket. Cursing fluently, Charlie abruptly heaved a loose rock across the clearing.

On a rampage now, he kicked a charred log until it careened through the grass, flung more timbers from the pile, and roared futile curses at the sky. Not acknowledging Penelope's existence, he bellowed with primal rage, and whirling around, slammed his fists repeatedly into the nearest tree trunk.

Penelope thought she'd fall apart watching his raw anguish. She had strong memories of grief so great she'd wanted to destroy something, anything, but she'd never given vent to it. Her unspoken despair had torn her apart, and continued to rip her to shreds through years of helplessness. Charlie's outburst seemed indecent in comparison. She couldn't bear it.

Tears flooding her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, Penelope wedged between Charlie and his target. His hands were already bleeding from the blows. He didn't seem aware of her presence. She recognized the howling emptiness in his eyes.

Bitterly, she smacked her fists against his iron-hewed chest.

“Stop it! Stop it this instant, Charlie.” She couldn't describe what she wanted stopped if her life depended on it. She just knew she couldn't bear it anymore. Out here, in this primitive jungle with no one watching, she didn't have to maintain her stoicism. She smashed her fist against him until she had his attention.

“Get out of my way, Penelope,” he warned. He shoved aside her puny blows and tried to step around her.

“No, I won't! I can't. Not until you... Charlie!” she screamed as he dug his fingers into her hair and jerked her head back.

She stared into the bitterness blinding his eyes. She wasn't certain he was even seeing her.

“He's dead, pretty Penny. They killed him. Because of me. I've killed my best friend. Do you understand? Do you have any idea—”

She pounded futilely on his shoulders. “Yes, I do! I know precisely how you feel. Worse. A million times worse. You can't even begin to—”

He cut her off by lifting her into his arms and burying his face against her neck. His powerful shoulders shook with grief and rage.

Penelope slid her hands up and down his back, soothing him, willing him the strength she used to fight back her own tears. She'd not thought herself capable of empathy, but Charlie's pain resonated with hers.

Abruptly, he raised his head and glared at her as if she possessed something he had to have and would take by any means. Penelope stared back, captured by the raw misery behind his challenging look.

Without warning, he dipped his head and covered her mouth with his.

His kiss ignited an inferno in the dried kindling of her lower regions. Penelope dug her fingers into Charlie's shirt and hung on as his mouth ravished hers. He showed no mercy but staked his claim and mined it thoroughly, leaving her gasping and weak-kneed. And hot. So hot she could rip her clothes off right now. Rip them off and fling herself into his arms. His naked arms, preferably.