Laura's Big Break (21 page)

“Let me down,” shouted Laura.

“Okay,” said Mike reluctantly. “What do you want me to do? Do you want her down?”

He didn’t seem too pleased with the idea.

“Not yet,” Charlie said as he turned to Laura. “We’ve got some stuff to talk about first and it’s better with her up there.”

Now that really made her mad.

Charlie grinned. Even in the chaos that Laura generated wherever she went, he still felt more relaxed than he had in weeks.

Laura was beyond angry. She was volcano mad. If someone didn’t let her down from the fence soon she was going to… Going to what? She was stuck. The wind left her sails. She looked down at Charlie grinning up at her; he was enjoying every minute of this. It wasn’t the wonderful reunion she’d planned in her head. Nope, it was about as far from it as she could get. So much for taking a chance. She took one and look where it got her. She was a freak show for the afternoon session at a jungle clinic. She glared at Big Mike. He glared back. I’ll get you later, she promised herself.

“Charlie,” she said, disgusted that she was left to appeal to his good sense. Not that she’d ever seen any in him. “You need to let me down. This isn’t comfortable.”

He leered up at her.

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty cool view.”

Laura counted to ten under her breath.

“I am seriously beginning to wonder why I came to see you,” she told him.

He folded his arms over his blue t-shirt. His face had a few days of stubble on it and from the look of the dark circles under his eyes he’d been getting about as much sleep as she’d been getting.

“Let’s talk about that,” he said. “Why did you come see me? I thought I was a bad influence on you. That I made you do crazy things. That you lost control around me.”

Her eyes widened as the crowd was quiet. No one wanted to miss a word.

“Seriously?” she said. “You want to do this here with everyone listening?”

He looked behind him and shrugged.

“I thought you wanted sensible, boring and safe,” he continued.

Laura scowled down at him.

“Let me down and we’ll talk.”

“You’re kidding right. I like having the advantage. You might decide you don’t like the conversation and run away again.”

“Let. Me. Down.”

He waved her words away.

“So why are you here, Laura? Do you need another interview?”

“I didn’t need the first one Neanderthal.”

Something shifted within him.

“What?”

“Don’t you talk to your sister?”

“Not recently, no.”

Laura huffed towards the sky.

“I didn’t hand in the interview. I quit my job.”

Something began to rumble through Charlie’s body. He looked up at her.

“You what?”

She flapped her arms in exasperation.

“Quit the job. Left the country. Came to find you,” she looked at him pointedly. “Took a chance. And I have to tell you Charlie; right now I’m pretty much regretting it.”

Charlie spun away from Laura to rub a hand over his face; he was surprised to find that his palms were sweaty. The crowd grinned at him. He suddenly felt more than a little confused. He looked back at Laura. This wasn’t making any sense. But one thing he knew. He was glad she was there.

“So, I’ll ask again,” he said, his stomach clenched; he thought he knew the answer. “Why are you here?”

Laura took a deep breath. Looked him straight in the eye and told him the truth, as he knew she would. That was the thing about Laura, she had courage. She would always tell you honestly what she wanted. He thought he saw her lips tremble before she spoke.

“I’m here because I love you.”

The crowd gasped. Charlie felt sick.

“I am in love with you, Charlie Lewis,” she said.

Charlie felt light headed and bent over to restore the flow of blood.

“Great,” Laura said. “Someone get the idiot a glass of water. I think he’s going to vomit.”

Charlie wasn’t proud. He was sitting in the dirt hyperventilating looking up at the woman who said she loved him. And she wasn’t happy. If looks could kill he would be squashed like a bug.

“Love?” he said.

“Man up,” Big Mike told him. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

No kidding. Now if only the world would stop moving so he could stand again.

“Typical,” Laura said. “You tell me to let loose and live a little, so I pack up and come to visit you and this is how it goes. I can take rejection. I can even take making a fool of myself in front of a crowd. What I can’t take is staying where I’m not wanted. Let me down Big Mike. I’m going home.”

“Wait a minute,” Charlie told her. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you. I just need a minute to think.”

“Mike,” she demanded. “Let me down and take me back to the air strip.”

Mike toed him with his massive flip flop covered foot.

“What do you want me to do?”

Charlie didn’t know. His head was spinning. Love? Heck, he’d only come to terms with liking the woman. Love?

“What did you think would happen when you came here?” he asked her.

“I didn’t think. That’s what you do to me. You make me nuts. One tiny affair and I threw away the life I worked hard for and jumped on a plane into the jungle. I keep trying to tell you this. You make me nuts.”

“Charlie?” Big Mike nudged him again. “Do you want me to take her to the airport?”

No. He didn’t, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. He wasn’t ready for love. For commitment. For security in suburbia. And then something occurred to him. He wasn’t in suburbia. Laura wasn’t asking him to give up his life to be with her. No. She had done that for him.

He stood up to tell her that he wanted her to stay. He planned to say that they could have some fun together and see where it led. When he opened his mouth to speak he looked up at the Iron Maiden. That’s when he saw it. One tiny tear running silently down her pale pink cheek.

For a moment everything stopped.

And then, when it started again, it was different. The panic he had felt earlier was gone. The fear had evaporated. He knew, without a doubt, that for this woman he would do anything. He would give Laura Prentice anything she wanted, no questions asked.

“No,” he told Mike, “you can’t take her to the airport and you can’t unhook her. I need her exactly where she is.”

“Charlie?” There was a pleading element to her voice. He knew instinctively that it was taking all her energy to keep it together.

“So what do you want to do with her?” Mike asked, clearly exasperated.

“I’m going to marry her,” Charlie said.

And the crowd went wild.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Laura demanded.

Her armpits were beginning to hurt where her t-shirt bunched up and held her captive against the fence. She was hot. She was hungry. She was tired. And now, apparently, she had to deal with mass insanity. As she watched, people rushed forward to pump Charlie’s hand and congratulate him. It didn’t seem to bother anyone that his so called fiancé was hanging from a fence.

“Big Mike,” Laura hissed at the giant. “I take it back. When you’re surrounded by this lot you look positively sane. So please, unhook me and get me out of here.”

His mouth twitched and she thought the man may actually smile for a minute.

“He can’t do that,” Charlie called to her over the crowd, “we’re getting married. I sent for the local minister.”

Breathe, Laura told herself, breathe.

“Charlie, I need to talk to you now,” she took a deep breath and screamed, “alone!”

That got everyone’s attention.

“People,” said some French guy, “why don’t we give the happy couple a little space?”

She was grateful when he managed to herd them into the building. Charlie smiled up at her; he seemed really quite pleased with himself. Laura counted to ten and tried to calm her breathing so that she sounded sane when she spoke.

“Charlie, I don’t want to marry you.”

“Rubbish. Of course you do.”

She wanted to kick the fence behind her as hard as she could. Instead she used the same voice she would use to take a pair of scissors away from a toddler.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “I want to go home. I want to be back in London, alone, forever.”

Charlie sauntered towards her. He ran his hand up her calf, she kicked him away.

“I can’t sleep without you,” he said.

And just like that, a brick fell out of the wall she had built.

“I think about you all the time.”

Another brick toppled from her defence.

“I was so worried about you that I planned to come find you in London as soon as my six weeks here were up.”

Crash went the top of the wall. His beautiful eyes looked up into hers.

“You need to marry me.”

There was a hole in her wall so big now that a tank could have driven through it.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because you love me.”

“I can get over that,” she told him.

He nuzzled the bare skin of her belly making her blood pump faster.

“Well how about because I love you?”

What was left of her wall began to sway.

“Do you?”

He looked her in the eye.

“Yes, I do.”

The wall crashed down around her. She was defenceless against him.

“How do you know for sure? A minute ago you almost fainted when I said it.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“I didn’t almost faint.”

“Whatever. How do you know for sure?”

He settled his hands on her waist as he looked up into her eyes.

“You scare the life out of me,” he said at last. “You make me a better man, even though most of the time I don’t want to be one. You take away my nightmares. You give me something to worry about and think about besides myself. I thought I wanted to fix your life, but I was trying to fix mine. I need you with me. And if getting married will make that happen then that’s okay with me. Anything you want is okay with me. Because all I want is you.”

A tear slid down her face as she stared into the core of him.

“Do you believe me?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.

Laura nodded.

“Great,” he grinned, “so we’re getting married?”

“It seems a rush, why hurry things, why not hang out for a while first? I mean we need to think things through. It would be rash to rush into this. Weddings need planning.”

Her mind ran so fast her words couldn’t keep up with it.

Charlie kissed her belly.

“That’s exactly why we need to do it now. We wait any longer and your planning and control issues might screw the whole thing up. Nope, we do this now.”

“Or what?” He couldn’t make her marry him.

“There is no or what. We’re getting married now, whether you like it or not.”

“You can’t make me get married.”

“You haven’t met the local vicar yet.”

With that he wandered off.

“Where are you going?” Laura demanded. “You can’t leave me here.”

Five minutes later she had Big Mike for company. They glared at each other.

“I’m so going to kill you when I get down,” she told him.

“Bring it on, tiny sister.”

They waited in silence. At last Mike looked at her.

“Do you really want to marry the Doc?” he said. “Because if you don’t, if this isn’t for real, I’ll let you go.”

Laura looked out towards the rain forest and blinked. Never in her life had she imagined this scenario.

“Crazy lady?” Big Mike said.

“Yeah,” Laura sighed heavily. “I do want to marry the idiot.”

“Well all right, we have a party.”

Yeah, Laura thought wryly, one where the bride is immobilised and gets married wearing shorts and a t-shirt which is up around her neck.

Super-duper.

It didn’t take long to spot that the vicar was a lush. By the looks of him he’d been drinking for days. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants and a pair of blue deck shoes. Apart from the beard and something that looked like bird poop stuck in his hair, he looked like he was in the middle of a beach party.

“Do you, English doctor take the flying lady to be your husband?” he said between hiccups.

The French guy mumbled in his ear.

“I mean wife.”

“I do,” said Charlie loudly, setting off another round of cheering.

Laura actually felt a warmth buzz through her body at the words. He did. Charlie blew her a kiss.

“Do you lady on a fence; take the doc to be your awful wedded husband.”

“You’re kidding?” Laura asked Charlie. “This is how you want to do it. With a drunken preacher and your fiancé stuck to a fence?”