Just a Kiss Away (18 page)

They tasted soooo good. She popped some more in her mouth, and the flavor almost brought tears to her eyes. She rolled the rest of them around in her hand. They were different from any berries she’d ever seen. The skin was as tight and red as that of a hollyberry, but the center tasted as juicy and sweet as the plump spring blueberries from home.

She swallowed, slowly, savoring the flavor, then opened her eyes to meet Sam’s stare.

“Better?” he said. Then his gaze left her face and leisurely drifted down her body.

She felt a warm flush of embarrassment, realizing what she must have looked like while eating those berries, so she averted her eyes.

“Time to move on, Lollipop.” He stood then, and she could hear him unscrew the canteen cap. “Want some more water?”

“No, thank you. The berries were enough.” She licked her moist lips as she moved in behind him. The flavor of the berries still stained them. Only a fool would want to dilute the sweet flavor that remained by drinking water. She wanted to savor their taste for as long as she could.

He hadn’t moved, and she could still feel the heat of his gaze. She got up, her dignity still tarnished enough that she couldn’t look at him so she made another big to-do over brushing the leaves and wrinkles from her muddy rag of a dress.

She could almost feel his smile as he finally walked past her, heading back into the jungle. It seemed that she was Sam Forester’s source of entertainment. A few minutes earlier that would have bothered her, but now, with those luscious berries on her lips and in her shriveled stomach, she didn’t mind as much. Let him laugh at her. A LaRue, of the Belvedere LaRues of Hickory House, Calhoun Industries, and Beechtree Farms, was certainly above letting him get to her, especially when she wasn’t hungry anymore.

She tramped along behind him, and a few minutes later she was as bored as usual with the same old green surroundings, so she ventured into the realm of conversation with Sam Forrester. “Where’d you get those berries?”

“They grow in the high jungle, which is what we’re in now.” He stopped and waited for her to reach his side. “See those deep purple orchids?”

She followed his pointing finger to where bushels of lush orchids, thicker than azaleas at Easter, lined the narrow trail.

“The berry vines twine around those plants. If you look closely you’ll see the small berries beneath the flowers.”

She walked past him and over to one of the plants. She lifted the flower and there, hanging in small clusters, were those delightful berries. She grabbed a few and popped them into her mouth, smiling as she turned back to him.

“Don’t eat too many of those,” he warned.

She nodded, much more concerned with the incredibly sweet flavor of the berries. They were so good!

He shook his head and moved on. She turned to follow but stopped, turning back to the plant and grabbing a few more handfuls of the berries. Food for the road. Then she hurried to catch up with him, popping berries into her mouth whenever he wasn’t looking.

The fruit perked her up, and with renewed spirit she followed him, watching him hack his way through more bamboo. Each firm stroke of his machete sent the bamboo falling to the ground like pickup sticks.

But she wasn’t really looking at the knife. She was watching Sam Forester’s massive body.

His brawny arm sliced through the air with the power of a guillotine, the blade severing anything in its path. He raised his knife high again, and she watched, noticing how his arm muscles tightened from elbow to wrist so that she could see the outline of his veins, even through the thick black hair on his tanned forearm.

She ate some more fruit—addictive little devils—and her gaze moved to his upper arm, where his shirtsleeve was rolled high. Sam’s arm was as big as her thigh, but her thigh was pale and perhaps a little soft. She poked it and felt her finger sink a bit. His arm wasn’t soft, though. It was tanned and big and so solid that the muscles showed whenever he moved it.

Strange how she’d never noticed her brothers’ muscles. She ate another handful of berries while she pondered that thought. Jeffrey was almost as tall as Sam, but not as brawny. Harlan was long and lean, like Harrison. Leland and Jedidiah were shorter than Sam but almost as broad. She could never remember having any interest in their backs.

Sam’s, however, was really something to see in action. The muscles tightened across his back and bulged beneath his wet shirt. It rippled and swelled into hard, huge knots of muscle, and she had a sudden urge to reach out and touch him just to see if muscle and skin could be that solid.

She dug into the deep pocket of her dress and felt around for some more berries. She’d eaten them all. She judged his distance. He was only a little bit ahead of her now, so she ran over to another orchid bush, plucked off as many handfuls of fruit as she dared, then hurried back to follow him again.

About ten minutes later he stopped and offered her some water. She drank it this time, then handed him back the canteen. He looked at her, an odd expression on his face.

You haven’t been eating more of those berries, have you?”

Now, Lollie had a philosophy, one she’d used with her brothers many times over. If a man asked you a “you haven’t” question he really meant “Surely you couldn’t be so stupid as to have done such a thing.” She figured that when males were being so arrogantly condescending and superior as to ask a question in those words and that tone, they didn’t deserve to be told the truth. So she evaded the question.

“You don’t think I’d do that, do you?” She brought her hand to her neck to emphasize her horror that he could even suggest such a thing. This technique worked well with her brothers, except Jed. He never asked questions, he just started hollering.

Sam searched for her face a moment longer, as if trying to determine the truth. Then he shook his head, clipped the canteen in place, and told her to follow him.

She did, trotting along behind him, watching his back with rapt attention while she fingered the berries in her pocket. Guilt kept her from eating any, though, at least for the first half hour.

“Are you sure
you haven’t been eating any more of those berries?”

Lollie swallowed the three in her mouth, then answered his question with one of her own. “Why?”

“Uh, no special reason.” He had a strained look; then he coughed a few times, turning his back to her—which of course didn’t bother her since she found it so fascinating—and finished filling the canteen from a trickle of fresh water that ran down a rocky hillside.

“How much farther is this camp?”

“Another day. See that small mountain?”

She nodded, although her definition of “small” was obviously different from his.

“Once we get past it we’ll be closer. Ready?” She nodded, smiling with her mouth closed so he couldn’t tell she’d eaten two more.

He stared at her for a long minute. That caused her a bit of worry, until she remembered there was no way he could see those berries. They were well on their merry way to her stomach.

She grinned. So did he; then he elbowed past her, holding back a brace of branches for her.

For the next few hours they moved through jungle. They crossed two shallow streams; neither came up past her waist. They crawled through bushes so thick that it took what seemed to be a half hour to move a hundred feet. Lollie didn’t mind too much. While Sam was hard at work cutting their path, she managed to pluck plenty of berries.

They came upon another palm and bamboo forest, and Lollie, feeling fortified, asked Sam if she could use the machete.

He came to a dead halt, turned, and gave her one of those “are you crazy” male looks.

“No.”

“I don’t see why not,” she complained, her nose almost buried in his chest, because he’d stopped so suddenly. “I don’t have anything else to do, except smell . . . us.” She wrinkled her nose at him.

“You’re not exactly a peach blossom yourself.”

“I said
us!”
She rammed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You won’t let me do anything. I can’t talk. I can’t sing. I can’t even hum! I’m bored and filthy, and I need something to occupy my mind.”

Sam swatted a mosquito on his neck. He pulled his hand away and held it out to her. “Here, might be a little snug, but this ought to occupy it just fine.”

She narrowed her eyes, giving him her imitation of Madame Devereaux’s best glare. He just continued to look pleased with himself.

“You probably think I can’t do it, don’t you?” He crossed his arms, not answering her at all.

“Well, for your information, I have been watching you wield that knife for days. Hack and crack, hack and crack. Anyone can do that, including me.” She waited to see if he’d accept her challenge.

He handed her the knife, donning a sly smile of inflated male arrogance, and he walked over to lean against a tree, acting as if he had a long, long wait.

She’d show him how long. She hacked at the thick palms. The knife didn’t even cut them. Staring at the blade for a curious moment, she tried to figure out what she’d done wrong. She swung again. The fronds bent but didn’t break, didn’t crack, and didn’t fall to the ground as they had for Sam.

“Anyone can do it, huh?”

She stiffened at his baiting, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. Instead she grabbed the palm in one hand, gripped the knife firmly in the other, and hacked until she finally managed to saw the frond from the palm tree.

It took about five minutes.

“Nice work, Lollipop. At this rate we should reach the camp in . . . let’s see . . . late August?”

She glared up at him, blowing a hank of tangled wet hair out of her eyes. That did it! She turned back to face the palms, gripping the knife in her right hand, just as he did. Then she raised it as high as she could. One huge deep breath and then she closed her eyes and ripped the knife down and around in a half circle, just like Sam had, but she threw her whole body weight into swinging that machete.

She whirled with it.

It slipped from her hand.

Her eyes flew open.

“Shit!”

Still stunned, she gaped at Sam, then followed his gaze, up, up, up . . . .

Like a soaring eagle the knife sailed through the air, then descended. Sam barreled past her, thrashing through the brush in the direction of their only machete. Lollie followed as fast as she could.

By the time she broke into a small clearing, Sam was standing as still as a hickory tree on a summer day. His neck, however, was a purplish red, and his fists clenched over and over at his sides. He looked up. So did she.

There, wedged into a cluster of green coconuts, was the knife. The tree was a good thirty feet high.

Slowly he turned. “Anyone can do that,” he mimicked through a mean smile that made him look as if he wanted to tear trees apart, limb by limb. He stepped toward her.

“It looked so easy,” she whispered, stepping back. “It really did.”

“You do realize that’s our only machete, don’t you?” He took another step.

She nodded, unable to decide if maybe she should turn and run. She opted for an apology. “I’m sorry.”

She looked at the other two knives that hung from his belt. They were smaller; one was not much bigger than a carving knife. “Couldn’t you use one of those?” She pointed toward them.

He took a deep, labored breath. “They won’t cut through jungle or bamboo.” He paused, meaningfully. “They will cut through your clothes, though, and this one”—his hand rested on the smaller sheath—”will cut a white southern throat easily enough.”