Safari Moon (22 page)

Robert glanced lazily at the sofa. “I’m sure
with a warm blanket and a soft pillow I’ll find the accommodations
to my liking. Besides, I want to ride with Solo to the wolf site
and conduct a little research on my own. Wild animals and their
habits have always fascinated me.” Robert finished the sentence
with a pointed look at Solo.

“You can’t go to the site.” Solo’s voice
assumed a hard edge, and his fingers drummed against the white
linen cloth on the table. “Excuse me.” Solo pushed away from the
table.

“Of course I can. What’s to stop me?”

To Nyssa, the situation had reached a
catastrophic climax and threatened to explode in her face. The
problem was that Robert had every right to stay since she was
Robert’s fiancée and not Solo’s wife. But she was Solo’s wife so
she couldn’t be Robert’s fiancée.

About then Solo strode from the room, his
face a blank picture. The screen door quickly creaked open then
slowly back, followed by a penetrating silence.

“I’ll get my suitcase.” Robert pursued Solo
out the door and Nyssa prayed to heaven for divine guidance and
intervention.

Sarah smiled benignly at Nyssa and for one
frantic moment Nyssa felt sure Sarah knew about the charade.

“Robert is a nice young man but I can’t
figure out why he’s here. Perhaps you could tell me.” Sarah filled
Nyssa’s cup to the brim and Nyssa wondered if she could drink this
coffee without spilling it or choking on it.

Before she left for the kitchen, Nyssa bent
her attention to the stain and mumbled about ice maidens that
didn’t know what they were getting into when they promised hot
blooded males they’d help them out of a tight spot. As she walked
back to the table, Sarah slanted her a curious look.

To Nyssa, “Are you alright? You look a bit
ragged around the edges. But you are newly wed and I’ll bet my
grandson kept you up most of the night.”

Saved from an answer by Robert’s appearance
at the door, Nyssa watched the last remnants of brown sludge vanish
from the cloth. With that done, she sat down and a few minutes
later, she ventured a timid glance at Sarah.

“Where should I put this?” Robert dropped a
backpack onto the couch, his hand resting on the top while he
waited for directions.

“In the car,” Nyssa said.

Sarah and Robert both shot her a curious
look, “There’s no need to be rude. I know this complicates your
honeymoon. Why with me in the loft upstairs and Robert on the
couch, you don’t have a bit of privacy. But just think, we’ll leave
in a day or two and you’ll have Solo all to yourself.”

Sarah winked at her and Nyssa wanted to fade
into the wall.

Robert chose that moment to clear his
throat, and when he spoke, the threat in his tone was clear. “I’m
not sure when I’ll leave. I did take a week off work and I’d like
to see some of Alaska before I return.”

“Both of you will have to go home as soon as
the Colonel gets back from his business trip. I’m up here to work
not play.” Solo strode through the door, his presence intimidating.
He carried an arm-load of cameras in one arm and had a bag slung
over the other shoulder.

With Solo’s words, Robert stiffened and he
too tried for intimidation. His pose not as threatening as Solo’s
but Nyssa saw a side of Robert she’d never known existed.

Nyssa decided she didn’t want to find
herself between these two bristling and posturing male animals.
They had both assumed characteristics far different from their
usual demeanor, and she wasn’t sure at all how to deal with them.
Escape seemed preferable but there wasn’t the time or the
means.

Solo dumped his gear in the bedroom and when
he sauntered back to the living room, he had a look on his face
that said he’d won this round. He sat on the sofa, negligently
propping his feet on the rustic table in front of him. His hands
were crossed behind his head, and for the first time since Robert
and his grandmother pulled up in front of the cabin, Solo
smiled--smiled hugely.

“Don’t let me stop you,” Robert said. “I’ll
help if you tell me what to do.”

“Make no mistake, I’d love to tell you what
to do and nothing you could say would stop me, but I am on my
honeymoon and guests or not, I plan to enjoy myself and my
wife.”

“Solo.” Nyssa wondered what on earth
possessed this man to challenge Robert in such a tacky manner and
imply so many things that weren’t true.

“Pumpkin?”

Nyssa gripped the arms of the chair and
counted until her jaw hurt. Robert arched an eyebrow and Solo
smiled again, a self-assured, cocky smile. If this kept up too much
longer, she’d drive the jeep to the site and finish Solo’s pictures
so she could go home--by herself. The last place she wanted to be
right now was in this cabin with these two men and one sweet
innocent grandmother who could offer no protection. The scenario
reminded her too much of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad
Wolf, but in her case there were two wolves.

“I’d like to speak to you. In private,”
Nyssa said.

Solo set his feet on the floor and Robert
stepped in her direction.

“Solo--I want to talk to Solo.”

“After you.” Solo gallantly waited for her
to enter the bedroom before he too walked in, and with a grin on
his face closed the door behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nyssa
asked, by now thoroughly exasperated with Solo. “Everything you
said is a direct challenge to Robert. I can’t believe you’d do this
to me. Why?” When she finished she sat down on the window ledge,
her hands in her lap. Then she waited for a response, an answer to
the questions she’d flung at him, but all he did was shrug.

“Are you purposely rude?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be impolite but
our wedding means a great deal to grandmother. I can’t let her
think our marriage is anything but real. Robert’s presence and the
way he acts interferes with everything we planned.”

Nyssa leaned back against the window and
stared at the ceiling. The glass felt cold on her back, indifferent
to her problems and the knotholes in the wood above her didn’t
provide answers either.

“What are we going to do? I can’t sleep in
here with you while he’s out there on the couch.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“Of course we do,” Nyssa said. “We just
don’t know what those choices are yet.”

“We don’t have to solve the problem this
minute. I can sleep on the floor if you want me to.” Solo grimaced
when he said floor and Nyssa thought she could have laughed at the
face he made if the situation hadn’t been so dire.

“You don’t have to be noble. We are two
mature adults. We can share the bed without climbing all over each
other.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I can keep my hands off you.” Nyssa sounded
petty. She knew what she said wasn’t true but darn it anyway this
was Solo’s fault. He had the nerve to walk in here and insinuate
she wanted him.

“Want to bet.”

His words were slow and sexy and Nyssa
didn’t mean to think of the implications. She didn’t need to bet
either because without Solo’s help, she’d lose. Nyssa shook her
head and mouthed the word “no” but her reply was drowned out by the
loud obtrusive pound on the bedroom door.

“I don’t want you in that bedroom with my
fiancée.”

Solo wrenched open the door and Robert’s
hand, still poised in the air to knock, almost slammed into Solo’s
nose before he drew his arm back.

“My wife, and I’ll keep her in the bedroom
with me whenever I damn well choose to do so.” Solo’s lazy drawl
turned to a definite snarl when he spoke to Robert.

“Your grandmother,” Nyssa said.

“Gone for a walk,” Robert stepped into the
room and made straight for Nyssa who still sat on the window ledge.
She pushed back against the glass bewildered and frightened by
Robert’s new persona. “And she’s not your wife.”

“But I am. At least for a while.”

“A short while.” Robert reached for her hand
and held it possessively. “Although St. John doesn’t act like he’s
in any hurry to annul the travesty, I am. I’m sure with my help you
can fend his advances off until Sarah is well. Although I doubt
she’s been sick a day in her life.”

“Get your hands off my wife.”

“Solo.” Nyssa rose from the ledge and
untangled her fingers from Robert’s. “I don’t understand. Go
on--both of you. Go burn some energy.”

Although the two men glowered at each other,
they left and Nyssa wasn’t sure where they went. When she drummed
up enough courage to leave the bedroom, she discovered Sarah
happily occupying her time with knitting needless and yarn.

The afternoon slipped by and dinner was on
the table. The men were nowhere in sight, but Nyssa caught the
sound of wood splintering in the backyard. She didn’t have to look
to know Solo vented his frustration on the logs out back.

About then Robert walked into the room, his
face once again a blank mask and Sarah called Solo in to eat. The
meal was tense and would have given even the most hearty
personality indigestion. Nyssa left feeling disgusted with her
husband and her fiancé. They had spent the entire evening
exchanging barbed insults.

Nyssa excused herself but when she stepped
inside the door to the bedroom and gazed at the bed, she stopped,
her hand still on the knob. Tonight, Solo would sleep there with
her. He had to for Sarah’s sake. Robert would be on the couch and
Solo’s grandmother directly above them.

“Don’t look so horrified,” Solo said
roughly, following the direction of her eyes. He grabbed the quilt
she’d worn earlier and a pillow. “The hard floor is good for the
back. Doctor’s orders.”

“I’m in better shape than you are. I’ll take
the floor.”

“Will you pay the rent, too?”

Nyssa’s mouth gaped open. That particular
fishy expression fast becoming a habit these days. She snapped her
mouth shut. “Will I pay the rent?”

Solo’s grin widened and Nyssa thought that
expression of his could be habit forming. She might need a fix
every day for the rest of her life.

“I can’t pay the rent,” she said. Her voice
a whisper in the tiny bedroom.

“Then you’ll have to pay the
consequences.”

“I know. That’s why I’m sleeping on the
floor.”

“Sometimes, Nyssa,” he said and stepped
closer, “you don’t understand the workings of the male mind at
all.”

“Sometimes? More like every hour of every
day. And particularly this second.”

“Damn it, Nyssa,” he said. Two more strides
and he had her pinned against the wall. Trapped.

Solo touched her cheek, a soft expression in
his eyes before he dropped his hand to her waist and pulled her
hard, against him.

Her hands rose to his chest to brace
herself.

The length of her body flush against his,
responded instantly. God, he felt perfect.

“Hell,” he said this time as he lowered his
mouth to meld against hers, his tongue delving inside, fast and
hot.

Her hands were behind his head, bringing him
closer and she refused to let him go, her body on fire with
need.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” he said.
“Because if this isn’t real, I’ve been in my own fantasy land for
days. I’ve tried, Lord knows I’ve tried to keep my hands off you
for the sake of old Robert out there. I know you have your whole
life mapped out, your bicycle rides all over the world, attending
society functions on his arm. It makes up for what you left behind
in New York, doesn’t it?”

She brought her hand to his cheek and
touched him. Her heart contracted at what he said, about what he
assumed. At one time she’d thought he knew her better than anyone
else in the entire world, but if he thought she was that shallow,
he didn’t know her at all. Once a long time ago, Robert might have
been her dream, what he represented might have sufficed. But no
longer. Yet how could she tell him she craved adventure? How could
she make him feel any more guilty about the wedding than he already
did? She had to give him a way out of the marriage, or he’d find
himself wed to a woman he didn’t want for the rest of his life.

“Yes,” she said. “When this is finished, I
don't know what I'll do. I can't walk down the aisle with
Robert."

“Robert won’t marry you if you sleep with
me. He’s already told you that.”

“I know he wouldn't. I
know, too, sleeping with you could ruin his career. I'm going to
give him his ring back.”
As soon as I get
the courage. God, but I don't want to hurt him
.

“What you do with me is his business because
the two of you are engaged. He’ll have to forgive a lot of things
before this is over. But trust me, if you crawl in that bed with
me, we’ll make love. And if that happens, Robert will not take you
back. I know I wouldn’t.”

Solo’s face was hard and cold, but Nyssa
still wanted to touch him one more time. She held herself rigid
instead and didn’t give in to the disturbing sensations that raced
through her.