And Babies Make Four (15 page)

They’d barely spoken during the past few days, and when they did it was usually at the top of their lungs. The paradise of Eden Valley had disintegrated into a hell on earth, and every conversation left them both bruised and bloody.

They argued over everything. Tension hung between
them like a bomb, ready to blow at the slightest word or gesture. Last night at dinner they’d argued for five minutes about passing the salt. And this morning he’d goaded her unmercifully about being paranoid over a silly dream.

He hated what it was doing to him. He despised what it was doing to her. Hell, most of the time he didn’t even know what they were arguing about.

Don’t kid yourself
, his conscience chided.
You know
exactly
what you’re arguing about
.

Grimacing, he turned back to the generator and tried to concentrate on his work. No luck. He looked at crankcases and thought of Noel. He changed oil filters and thought of Noel. He couldn’t even breathe without catching her lingering feminine smell, like a wolf scenting its mate, or its prey.

Minutes stretched into an hour. The humidity increased by the second, making him feel stiflingly hot, sweaty, and even more bad-tempered. He pulled off his shirt, hoping the bare skin would make him cooler. It didn’t. Instead, a quick glance at Noel’s still-closed tent flap made him hotter and angrier than ever.
Well, she can stay inside and rot if she wants. I don’t care
.

But he did care. That was the problem. The harder he tried to get her out of his mind, the more the single damning sentence returned.
I love you
.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. He knew that, but it made him crazy just the same. Ever since she’d said those three little words an unbearable pressure had been building inside him, like a volcano on the brink
of erupting. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep—hell, he couldn’t even watch her walk across the camp without getting aroused. He wanted her like he wanted his next breath, and the craving tore at him like a savage beast. Having her obsessed him, and the fact that he’d thrown away a perfectly good opportunity to do just that only made him more wild for her.

So why not take her now? You know she wants you. You can see it in her eyes every time she looks at you. Why not get it over with?

“Because …” Groaning, he leaned heavily against the tent’s post and plowed his hands through his sweat-damp hair. His voice dropped to a harsh whisper as he admitted, “Because it wouldn’t be ‘over with.’ Not with her.”

“What wouldn’t be over with?” queried a nearby electronic voice.

Sam stiffened. Glancing around, he caught sight of Einstein’s notebook computer, its screen up and active. Damn, he’d meant to switch off the computer before he started on the generator so he could concentrate on his work. Or try to, anyway. “Forget it, E. It’s nothing important.”

Einstein’s internal processors whirred, and the mini–video camera mounted on the nearby tripod focused inquisitively on Sam’s face. “Tension and modulation of voice indicate eighty-three-percent probability of duplicity—”

“Okay, so I’m lying! That’s ’cause it’s none of your business. Shouldn’t you be analyzing some statistics or something?”

“Yes, but need something more important,” E answered. “Need advice. About women.”

Sam gave a harsh laugh. “Einstein, my boy,” he said as he bent over the generator, “I’m just about the
last
guy you should ask for advice on that subject.”

“But need help!” Einstein cried desperately as his camera spun 360 degrees in alarm. “PINK hasn’t talked with me in two days. You know how many nanoseconds that is?”

“Yeah, well, life’s tough all over,” Sam commented brusquely as he adjusted the carburetor. “She’ll probably snap out of it eventually.”

“Don’t want
eventually
. Want
now
. Worried.” Einstein’s
screen
design wavered, as if he was deciding how much to
confide
. “She cries, Sam. Just like Noel.”

Sam’s head shot up. “Noel cries?”

“At night,” Einstein replied, his camera nodding up and down. “Big, macro-tears. Sometimes she mentions your name.”

“Christ,” Sam breathed. He slumped to the workbench and shook his head wearily. He’d chosen to live a loner’s life, cutting himself off from the majority of the human race, purging his soul of the need for the comfort and companionship that came from a good woman’s love. Though they were tough, unforgiving decisions, he’d learned to live with them. But he’d never considered the effect they’d have on someone else … someone who was fool enough and sweet enough to think she was in love with him.

“She shouldn’t be crying. Not over me.” His voice
was as desolate as the barren mountain heights. “God knows I wish … but she’s got a life back in the States. She’s got friends, family, a successful career. I couldn’t offer her anything like that.”

“You could offer her love,” Einstein suggested helpfully.

“My track record in that area hasn’t exactly been great. That’s all the more reason for me to want her to go back to her old life. I want the best for her, E,” he added with a grim smile. “I sure as hell want her to have someone better than me.”

“Are you saying that because of Gina?”

Every muscle in Sam’s body went rigid. “What do you know about Gina?”

Processors whirred. “Accessing satellite-linked databases. Know blood type, school grades, foster-home reviews, driver’s license number, shoe size, police accident report—”

“Okay, I get the idea.” He bolted to his feet, and began pacing the floor of the tent in long, angry strides. “Do you know how she died?”

The processors whirred again. “Retrieving police files. Head-on collision with drunken driver. Rainy night. Poor visibility. An accident.”

“The hell it was.” He stroked back his hair with both hands. “I could have slowed down like she wanted me to, but I was so damned determined to make that business dinner and close the deal.”

“Statistically, accidents happen,” Einstein said gently. “Bad luck.”

“Yeah. And I’m supposed to be the lucky one, because
I’m still alive and she’s a highway statistic—” He stopped pacing, and ran his hand over his face. “Does Noel know about Gina?”

The minicam tracked back and forth like a person shaking his or her head. “Don’t think so. But could ask when she gets back if you want.”

“For God’s sake, no. I don’t want her to … what do you mean ‘when she gets back’? She’s over there in her tent.”

“Was. Exited through back exactly fifty-seven minutes and five—”

“What!” He barreled across the camp and tore aside her canvas flap, staring at the empty space inside of the tent.

“Einstein!” he roared, heading back to the generator tent. “Where’d she go?”

“Don’t know exactly …”

“You’ve got to have some ideas.” Dammit, he’d told her not to go wandering off on her own. Eden Valley may have been named for paradise, but in reality it was far from it. An inexperienced person could get caught in a sudden rockslide, or fall into one of the hidden limestone sinkholes that booby-trapped the area under the innocent-looking cover of vegetation.

And Noel Revere was about as inexperienced as they came.

He rammed his hand through his hair, caught in a complex whirlwind of fear, frustration, and an emotion he didn’t dare name. If anything happened to her … “Okay, let’s think about this. She’s here to
collect research data on … hell, I don’t even know. E, what’s she studying?”

“I’m sorry, but that information’s classified.”

Sam gripped the sides of Einstein’s unit, and stared straight into the computer’s minicamera lens. “Listen, you glorified abacus, this is no time to play secret agent. I’m not going to tell the Libyans or the Iranians or whoever the hell else you’re afraid of. You know me better than that. The only thing I’m interested in is finding Noel. Now, what did she come here to research?”

For several seconds Einstein said nothing. Then his audio box let out a long, almost heartfelt sigh. “Breaking all programmed protocols, but … she came here to research the secret of life.”

Sam’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

“Humor subprogram not activated,” Einstein informed him. “Sheffield scientists observed that fertility rates on this island unusually high. Sent doctor, PINK, and me to check out flora, fauna, magnetic resonance, soil content, meteorological conditions—anything that might account for unusually high reproduction activity.”

“You mean you’re looking for some kind of sex recipe?”

“Not sex, means of increasing female fertility. Prefer to think of it as Eden equation.” E sounded as affronted as his audio replicator would allow.

“You can call it chicken soup for all I care, as long as it helps me find her.” He shielded his eyes from the intense noon sun, glancing toward the towering
mountains. He’d never felt so small, so incredibly useless. “Where would she go to study this … equation?”

“Not sure, but earlier this morning our sensors recorded a high concentration of magnetic activity in the area near the waterfall—”

“Okay, I’m going after her,” Sam interrupted before E could finish. “Hold down the fort until I get back, will you?”

“You bet. Er, what fort?”

“Just look after things,” he said as he headed for the jungle, but Einstein called him back.

“Hey, you’re not gonna hurt her, are you?”

“Hurt her? I love her!” Sam roared as he stormed into the brush. “And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have Noel end up as another statistic.”

“Noel!”

Sam’s cry rang through the jungle. Alarmed, a mountain lemur scuttled up the smooth, buttresslike trunk of a nearby tree, and a flock of white-winged butterflies exploded into the air. For a moment the entire forest stirred to reluctant life, prodded out of a midday languor by his jarring call. Then—silence.

Sam pulled out his bandanna and ran it over his sweat-soaked face. The heat of the place was cloying, closing around him like a steaming fist. Cursing, he stuffed the bandanna in the back pocket of his cutoffs and resumed his trek through the dense underbrush.
Let her be okay, God. I’ll fly arrow straight for the rest of my life, if you’ll just let her be okay
—

He stopped as he realized he’d made the same desperate prayer, over Gina the night of the accident. He balled his hands into fists, aching from a wound that wouldn’t heal, no matter how many months went by. His friends, Jack Fagen included, told him that time would dull the pain, but they’d been wrong. The only thing time did was give him more hours to replay the fateful seconds, that moment when he’d glanced away instead of keeping his eyes on the road. He’d been careless for one instant, and a person he cared about was gone forever. Now another life might be in danger, another person he loved, whether he could admit it to her or—

An unfamiliar sound caught his ear. He stilled, holding his breath as he listened. For a long minute he heard nothing, and he was beginning to think he’d imagined the sound, when he heard it again. Singing. Off-key, high-pitched, an absolutely terrible rendition of “The Music of the Night.”
Noel
.

His jaw pulled taut. She wasn’t in any danger, except possibly from a music critic. She wasn’t even concerned. She’d disobeyed his orders, dragged him into this sweatbox, driven him half out of his mind with worry … and she was singing Broadway show tunes.

“I’ll kill her,” he muttered, barreling like a stampeding bull through the waist-high ferns. “She’s pulled my chain for the last ti—”

He broke through the stifling forest into the cool,
fresh-aired glade of the waterfall pool. She was standing by the water’s edge, singing nonchalantly just as he’d expected. He didn’t expect, however, that she’d be stark naked.

Noel heard a sound behind her. Quick as thought she spun around—but it was only a chicken hawk making a dive for its dinner. In a graceful, deadly maneuver the bird fell like a rock to the ground, then soared skyward with a small, struggling field mouse in its beak. Noel’s hand rushed to her suddenly constricted throat.
I know exactly how it feels
.

Putting the disturbing image out of her mind, she turned back to the pool and dove in. The cool, refreshing water wrapped soothingly around her body, but it did nothing to calm the chaos in her soul. Even now, when she was trying with everything in her not to think about him, she remembered him pulling her from the water, rescuing her, holding her, loving her.

Groaning, she swam back to the bank and hoisted herself out of the pool. “Damn you, Sam Donovan,” she whispered angrily as she grabbed her towel and rose to her feet. “I hate you. I despise you. I—”