Cherry Adair - T-flac 03 (41 page)

She mashed her nose against his shirtfront, her arms tight around his waist. Shivering as though she were in the Arctic instead of the tropics, she was grateful for the strength and support of his arms as he held her close.

"Where the hell did you learn to fight like that, jungle girl?"

"B… ballet school." Damn, she couldn't seem to stop shaking. Kyle rubbed her back and she closed her eyes, leaning against him, drawing strength from the vast well of his.

After a few moments she forced herself to pull away from him to check on her sister. "We'd better get going," she said quietly.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

«^»

Several helicopters sat at the small landing strip behind the hacienda. All had the cobra logo painted on the side. Kyle selected one and opened the cargo door.

"Get Lauren settled," he told Dare, not looking at Delanie. "I'll go get the parts I yanked out the other day. Be right back." He strode across the packed dirt to the hanger.

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Delanie watched him go, then turned back to help Dare lift her sister into the back of the chopper.

"He's crazy about you," Dare told her as he jumped in beside Lauren. Delanie gripped the door frame, levering herself inside. Having baked in the sun all morning, the inside was as hot as an oven. Though it wasn't anything like the one Kyle had used to fly her into San Cristobal, she had a flash of a memory that threatened to rip out her heart. Pushing it aside, she found a blanket, folding it to put under her sister's head.

"I came to Izquierdo to find my sister," she said doggedly, smoothing Lauren's hair off her face. "She's found. We're going home."

"What about Kyle?"

"Lauren needs me."

Dare jerked his chin at his friend striding back from the hanger. "Think he
doesn't
?"

"Look," Delanie said tiredly, "I don't want to be rude when you're getting us out of here, but what I think about Kyle is none of your business."

"So you're coming to Montana?"

"I'm going wherever is best for my sister."

"She's going to Montana."

"Then so am I." Delanie glared at this scarred stranger who thought he could do whatever the hell he liked with her baby sister.

From the open doorway she watched as Kyle came closer, his arms full of boxes. He must have ditched his shirt in the hangar. The beige tank top he wore showed off his broad tanned chest and shoulders. She couldn't drag her eyes away from him as he walked up to the door. Sitting on the floor as she was, they were at eye level.

Muscles shifted under tanned skin as he tossed the boxes behind the second row of seats. "Purified water, fruit juice, and whatever I could scrape together to eat." He talked exclusively to Dare. "I'll just get these parts back in—"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I'll do it," Darius insisted, jumping down. He took the greasy parts from Kyle and disappeared from view.

"Better buckle up, jungle girl."

"Yeah, I guess so." She started squeezing between the two rows of seats, then changed her mind. "I'd rather stretch my legs for as long as I can before we fly out." She turned back, sat on the floor in the doorway, where Kyle stood, and dangled her legs, ready to jump down. He put his large hands around her waist and swung her to stand in front of him.

"Thanks for letting me take Isabella on my own." She grimaced. "It was a little more dramatic than I'd anticipated, but I guess it was poetic justice after all."

"Yeah, it was. Feel all right?"

"She was bluffing."

"How would you know that?"

"Because the last time that knife was used, I peeled an orange with it. I could smell it when she stuck it in my face."

"I wish to hell I'd known." He looked off into the middle distance, then turned back to her. "Jesus, that scared about twenty years off my life."

The shadow directly overhead from one of the rotors covered Kyle's eyes. She wished she could see his expression. There was a long silence. Emotions swirled inside her.

His pale eyes searched her face. "Going to Montana, jungle girl?"

"Yes." A painful ache settled around her heart. She had no idea how to tell him things she'd only begun to understand herself. She heard Dare clanking away at something in the engine. A transport helicopter took off nearby. People shouted orders in the distance. The sun shone.

Frustrated, Delanie glanced back to check on her sister, who still hadn't regained consciousness.

"Lauren will be fine," Kyle assured quietly.

"From your mouth to God's ears."

"While you're there, have the surgeon take care of your ankle."

"Okay."

"Here." Kyle removed something from his back pocket, and took her hand. "Sell these when you get back, should give you a comfortable little nest egg." He opened his fist and poured three gold herringbone chains into her palm.

Instinctively she flinched, her eyes narrowed with distaste. "The last thing I'm going to do is take these things home with me."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Kyle closed her hand around the warmed gold. "More poetic justice. Do some good with the money."

Reluctantly she stuck them into her front pocket. The necklaces, and what to do with them, were least of her problems. She stared at him suspiciously. "Why are you giv—" Oh, God, what—"Aren't you going with us?"

"No, I'll bug out tomorrow. There're still some ends I need to tie up here."

"But I thought—" He shook his head and she swallowed, her mouth dry.

"Stay with me." He didn't touch her. "I trust Dare with my life; let him take Lauren to our clinic where she'll be helped. I doubt they'll let you see her until she's stable. Could be weeks—"

"But I'll be close by—Oh, God, Kyle." Somehow she prevented a catch in her voice. "Don't make me have to choose."

"I'd never make you do anything, Delanie." He raked his hair back, sounding exhausted.

"I'm all she has."

He sighed. It sounded sad and soul deep. "I know."

He reached out and almost touched her cheek, and she wanted to press his hand there. Keep it there.

Against her face. Close enough to smell him, to see the pale green of his eyes looking back at her.

He stuck his hands in his front pockets.

"Then I guess this is good-bye," she whispered.

"Yeah." His eyes narrowed. Whatever he'd been looking for obviously wasn't there. "Bye, jungle girl."

Delanie struggled for air, feeling tears swim in her eyes. "Kiss me good-bye," she begged achingly.

He shook his head no. He wouldn't even allow her that.

"Kyle—" She didn't know what to say. And even if she did, she'd never be able to speak over this aching lump in her throat. Her chest felt tight.

It should be raining.

But the sun shone and the brilliant birds flittered around chirping happily. The darn trees grew five feet a second, and the mosquitoes flourished. All was right in this green hell except that her heart was being ripped out. She started digging in her pocket for a Maalox, remembered she didn't have any, and dropped her hand. Great. Just great.

"Ready to roll?" Dare shouted impatiently. Delanie hadn't even noticed he was inside the helicopter. The rotors started turning, slowly.

Delanie looked back at Kyle, heart in her eyes. Regrets tasted bitter on her tongue. Needing to touch him, she reached up to brush a strand of hair off his cheek. He flinched as if she'd slapped him.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Kyle. I—" The words fell tonelessly from her mouth as, without a word, he turned and walked away.

"Lady," Dare said above her, hand on the door ready to slam it shut. "Fish or cut bait. Lauren and I are leaving."

«^

Four Months Later

Perfectly aware everyone in the bar was staring at her, Delanie nursed her fifth cup of bad coffee. Back to the corner, seated at a small, sticky-topped Formica table, she willed Kyle to walk through the front door. Now.

Four months and three days. Who knew she'd miss the man so much it would become a physical ache?

It was early afternoon, and the bar was already half full. The clientele consisted of dock workers and a group of scantily clad women she presumed were hookers. A stunning redhead sat alone at a table, silently drinking a soda, obviously waiting for someone. A couple of guys dressed in jeans and T-shirts, tourists by the look of them, pored over maps and guidebooks spread out on the bar. And two stevedore-types who hadn't taken their eyes off her since she'd come in hours ago. Delanie removed the small can of Mace from her purse and held it firmly in her left hand under the table.

The smell of rotting wood, tar, and brine mixed with cigarette smoke, cheap liquor, and even cheaper perfume. She was out of her mind for being here. In this bar, and in Rio de Janeiro. She'd had third, sixth, and ninety-ninth thoughts all the way from Montana to Brazil.

The kamikaze cabdriver had taken her through the shanty-towns and barrios of Rio at breakneck speed, darting down narrow lanes and dank streets to end up at the Last Chance Bar and Grill near the docks in a screech of bad brakes.

Her desire to see Kyle outweighed the danger.

Last Chance.

How appropriate. She wondered, not for the first time, if Darius had lied and sent her halfway around the world to find a man who wasn't there, just to get rid of her.

The bartender came over and picked up the empty mug she'd nursed for the past hour. "You pay rent, senhorita?"

Delanie opened her purse, extracted one of the twenty-dollar bills from the "bribe" compartments of her purse, and handed over the money. "I'll have a bottle of… whatever's local."

He gave her a salacious smile, gold-capped teeth flashing beneath a bushy black mustache, before he shuffled back to the bar to fetch her order.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

One of the sailors got up from his table, said something to his companion, then sauntered over to her. He reached out drunkenly and grabbed her bare arm.

"Hey!" Her purse slipped off her lap as he hauled her to her feet.

"How much?" he demanded, his breath beery in her face.

"Let go of me!" Delanie depressed the sprayer for the Mace. The spray hit the guy squarely in the neck.

Damn it.
Higher
. "I'm not—"

Suddenly the redhead stood at her elbow. Looking as furious as Delanie was indignant, she grabbed the man's beefy bicep and burst into a spate of rapid Portuguese. Slowly he grinned as the woman stroked his arm, then proceeded to pull him toward the front door, still talking.

Delanie fell back into the chair and watched them disappear into the sunshine outside. She gave mental thanks to her unlikely guardian angel. She hadn't taken the woman for one of the hookers, but she was relieved the redhead had been so territorial.

The bartender returned with a fingerprint-smudged glass and a smoky bottle, both of which he slammed on the table before going back to his other customers without leaving her change.

Ignoring the pale worm curled at the bottom of the bottle, Delanie filled the glass, then wrapped both hands around her "rent" and held on as though her life depended on it.

Darius had informed her that Kyle came into the bar every afternoon at three. She'd been here since two, just in case he showed up early. It was now after four. Where the hell was he?

Her body, her mind, her very soul ached to see Kyle.

When she'd chosen to get on that helicopter with Lauren instead of staying with him on Izquierdo, she'd known she'd hurt him. God only knew, by leaving as she'd done, she'd hurt herself. Every day apart had deepened the self-inflicted wound on her heart.

She'd come halfway around the world to make it right.

Lauren would make a full recovery; Dare wouldn't have it any other way. He'd reluctantly arranged for Delanie to stay in a small cabin on the ranch where T-FLAC had a training camp, within walking distance of the clinic. In the past four months she'd met all the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies, and the psychiatrists there. She was more than satisfied with Lauren's care.

She'd half expected Kyle to show up in Montana. But he hadn't. The first few weeks there had been hell. Her sister hadn't been a good, or willing, patient. When she'd finally acknowledged that she couldn't do anything useful in Lauren's recovery, she'd felt painful, desolate despair that Kyle hadn't contacted her. Although, God only knew, she shouldn't blame him.

Weeks followed, with still no word, and her grief turned to mild annoyance. Where
was
the man? So much for loving her, damn it. If he cared as much as he'd said he did, he'd have at least contacted her.

Then after three months with no word, Delanie had gone to the gym on the grounds and worked off her anger on the dummy. It felt good punching it. It would have been better if the hard body had been Kyle's—

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

And think of the devil…

The door opened and here he was. Kyle Wright in the flesh. Delanie's heart leapt. Oh God, he looked good.

Wonderful. Familiar. Dear. His hair hung to his wide shoulders, and he wore his ubiquitous black silk T-shirt, black jeans… And a clinging redhead on his arm.

Delanie stuffed the Mace in the pocket of her ankle-length floral skirt, slung her purse over her shoulder, and pushed her chair back. Then she strode toward Kyle and the hooker with purpose in her step and blood in her eye.

"Excuse me," she said coolly, peeling the woman's hands off Kyle's bicep. "I appreciated your help earlier. But this one's taken."

Kyle gave her a mild look. "Hello, Delanie."

"She's going to lead you a merry dance, love," the redhead told Kyle in a husky, vaguely familiar voice.