The Unseen (10 page)

Bunny struggled to keep up with his long-legged stride. “You actually live around here?”

The instant his eyes met hers, they transformed to a warmer shade of green. “Yeah. I moved here from England a couple years ago and bought a house on the ocean.”

Electricity thrummed through her body as she imagined spending a night at this gorgeous man’s oceanfront home. She could tell by the way Winston looked at her, he found her attractive. And she found his blond curls, shapely lips and British accent intoxicating.
I wonder what he’s like in bed?

Probably as awful as Jason, argued the beaten down side of Bunny. “That sounds really nice. Are you sure you don’t mind having company?”

“Of course not. Anyway, what kind of guy would leave a beautiful damsel alone when nutters are chasing her?” He jerked open the passenger door of his silver pickup. Bunny slid inside while he sprinted around to the other side. Once he sat in the driver’s seat, he looked over at her and let out an audible exhale. “Do you see anyone?”

Bunny craned her neck around. “It seems to be all clear.” She turned back toward Winston, studying the blond curls that framed his face and his slightly blunted broad nose that made her want to reach out and tweak it.

When her eyes zoomed in on his lips, she felt as if she’d been drawn into a trance.
Now you’ve really lost it.
She knew the last thing she needed now was another relationship.
I’m too damaged to even think about it.

“I’ll just leave like I’m not in a rush then.” He slowly pulled out of the parking lot onto the street.

* * * *

During lulls in the conversation, Winston looked back on the flurry of events that had happened during the past hour. He’d planned to meet business associates to schedule trips. Instead he’d knocked on the wrong door to find a deliciously curvy woman behind it.

He’d found the mistake to be rather fortuitous until the shootout began. Then Bunny had flat out admitted she and people she knew had gotten on the bad side of gemstone smugglers. To top that off, Winston knew one of the men he’d seen shooting from Bunny’s hotel window.

They’d led dozens of adventure trips—hikes through the jungle, river rafting trips, bird watching adventures, and scuba diving and snorkeling trips. Winston had never suspected the other trip leaders of being involved with any illegal activity. Now it was clear he’d been naïve.

Maybe they’d intended him as a target, too.
Two heads for the price of one. Maybe if I went to the
right
room, I’d be dead by now.

Now that he’d linked up with Bunny, they’d definitely want him dead. Most likely, the first place they’d track him would be his house. I can still keep Bunny safe there, he thought.

Expats were always targets, so he’d installed wrought iron bars on every window and retractable metal gates on all the sliding doors. And he owned enough firearms to start his own militia.
There’s nothing they can throw my way that I can’t handle.

Winston swung the car off the main highway onto the dirt road that led to his Nhat Le Beach home. He glanced toward Bunny. Her head was angled away from him and she gazed into the distance, her lips turned down in a frown.

She seemed absorbed in thoughts he imagined weren’t pleasant. He cleared his throat. “So you traveled all the way from the States to visit Mountain River Cave, right? What brought you here?”

“It’s kind of a long story involving a very scary man. You probably don’t want to hear it.”

Winston tried to maintain a neutral expression. “I’m a good listener. And scary seems to be today’s theme anyway, so let’s hear it.”

Bunny slouched in her seat, her gloomy expression making it clear what she planned to share was painful. “The guy I lived with for four years tried to kill me one night I took too long shopping, and it was the absolute last straw. So I applied to go on a caving expedition even though I never did any climbing before.”

“A caving expedition? How did you get hired without experience?”

Bunny crossed her legs, which drew the hem of her dress up higher on her thighs. “I lied on my application. It felt like my only way out. Pretty pathetic, don’t you think? I’ve never spent a night in a tent in my life, yet I proclaimed I had fifteen years of climbing experience.” Bunny threw up her hands and then let them slap down on her thighs.

Winston did his best to draw his gaze away from Bunny’s shapely, tantalizing thighs. “I think it was pretty bold of you. Well, you’re here, so I guess he hired you.”

“Yep. He responded to my email almost immediately, praising my credentials and offering me a job.”

Winston bit his lip to hide his amused smile. “Wow. Your weeks out in the jungle must have been rather interesting.”

Bunny buried her face in her hands. “They were the worst. I feel so ashamed. My incompetence put so much strain on everyone else.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. Lots of people wouldn’t fare well out in that jungle. After living with that bloke, I’m sure you needed time to recover, not another bout of stress. I can see why you struggled. But I’m curious why didn’t you just call the police and ask for a restraining order instead of applying for a job on the other side of the world?”

Bunny’s shapely pink lips paled as she pressed them together. “There’s no way that would have worked. He knows how to talk—not even my mom sees through his charade. My coworkers and friends would gush on and on about what a charmer he was and how lucky I was to be with him while I ground down my molars to keep from screaming. If only they saw the Jason I lived with. He would have brown-nosed those cops and then beat the life out of me. I lost count of how many times the man hit me, slammed me against walls and threw beer bottles at my head.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered.

He imagined from her rigid expression that one of those awful scenes was playing inside her head. His body tensed at the thought that a person that called himself a man could treat Bunny so badly.
I’d like to show that miserable excuse for a male the broad side of my fist . . .

“I shouldn’t have pressed you to tell me what happened. I’m very sorry I upset you. That’s a rotten bloke who would treat you like that—you deserve much better.”

Bunny cast him a puppy-dog-eyed expression, which made him feel like stopping the car and scooping her into his arms.

* * * *

“Please don’t apologize. I feel much lighter inside now that I’m letting it all spill out.” It felt so easy to talk to Winston. He felt more like a longtime friend than a stranger she’d just met.

Instead of criticism—which had been the norm with Jason and her mother—she was getting acceptance and understanding from Winston. She told him how scared she’d been that Jason would follow her to the airport.

Winston glanced over to her to meet her gaze, as if to reassure her he understood and wanted her to continue.
What if he’s putting up a front like Jason?

She longed to trust her instincts, which told her Winston was special, that he was too kind-hearted and considerate to deliberately hurt her.
But maybe I’m too damaged to have a relationship with Winston. He deserves someone together, someone not like me.

“After awhile, every move I made was based on fear. Every day felt like a struggle to stay alive. I lost all consideration for others—self-preservation was my only priority—so I had no qualms about fabricating my entire resume or whining my way through the whole expedition.” She hung her head in shame, wondering why it had been so easy to act pathetic a week ago and why all at once it felt so wrong.

He took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it on her shoulder, massaging it gently. “You’re being awfully hard on yourself, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Winston, if you could have seen me out there . . .” She let out a long sigh. “I wish I could have done it differently.” She reached into her purse for a tissue and wiped sweat from her forehead.

Winston turned up the air conditioner another notch. His unruly blond curls bounced in the breeze. “What would you have done differently?” He raised an eyebrow and angled his head toward her.

“For one thing, instead of whining about every little inconvenience, I would have kept my discomfort to myself. No one else complained and I’m sure they must have been really uncomfortable out there, too. We hiked for miles and miles in that hot, sticky jungle and we were constantly having close encounters with insects and reptiles and more often than not, it poured down rain and we were drenched. The people on the team were a really great bunch. They looked out for each other. One time Kent even dove in the water to save Rebecca when a ledge she was standing on crumbled and she fell into a flooding cave. I never would have taken a risk like that for someone else.”

Winston shook his head. “That’s simply not true. Look how quickly you acted to save me when gunfire erupted in the hallway.”

“I know.” Bunny smiled, recalling the exhilaration she’d felt at that moment. “But it felt like a switch went off in my brain—and instead of feeling like a victim, all at once I felt like me. If I’d acted like that out in the field, maybe they wouldn’t have sent me to the Sheraton. The high maintenance girl who landed in a Third World country with her platform shoes needed to kept comfortable while the serious folks got on with the mission. But they’re all in danger and I wish I could help them—they were always there for me.”

“I heard you mention kidnapping earlier, but I wasn’t sure you were serious. Did those men hurt you?”

Winston’s sexy English accent beguiled her, but his protective tone of voice made her want to jump in his lap. “No, but they would have if Kent, Rebecca and Andrew hadn’t rescued me when they did. Those horrible men were making crude comments about my physique and the dreadful things they wanted to do to me. I figured I was done for—and then all at once the skirmish began . . . “

Bunny shivered, remembering how the men’s lustful gazes had strip searched her, making her feel even more terrified than she had in Jason’s presence.

Winston’s face darkened with anger. “Well they won’t lay a finger on you as long as you’re with me. If they come anywhere near you, I’ll shoot them full of holes. I’ve got top-notch security at my house—not to mention plenty of firearms.”

“Which one of those men do you know? I heard someone shout your name.”

The corners around Winston’s lips tightened. “I know the bearded man—his name is Larry. I was supposed to meet him and two others he planned to introduce me to. And to think that I trusted those bastards.” The pitch of his voice rose. “I had no idea they were involved with anything illegal. But life’s like that here. You never know who you can trust.”

A knot tightened in Bunny’s stomach. “Do they know where you live?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry, they won’t get by my security.”

“These men are awful. They killed three tourists who stopped by their camp and one man named Steven escaped, but just barely. We found him lying in the forest with a wounded shoulder.”

Winston’s upper arms tightened on the steering wheel. “Don’t worry, I won’t take any of this lightly.”

Bunny imagined his steely muscles would handle a firearm well. She wondered how they’d feel wrapped around her waist.
Get back on task.
“I don’t want to talk anymore about those men. Just thinking about them gives me a stomachache. Why don’t you tell me what brought you to Vietnam?”

“I was a history professor at Cambridge until two years ago. The routine of it all was dreadfully dull. I’ve always had a bit of an itch to travel, I suppose. I’d take a trip or two whenever I had vacation days, but it wasn’t enough. One day I decided to let whim lead the way. So I turned in my letter of resignation, moved here and started my own company. Overall, it’s been a delightful change.”

How romantic.
A brilliant Ph.D. abandoning the intellectual life that was expected of him to live a life of adventure. His alluring accent, his blond curls, his personality—everything about the man quickened her blood.

Maybe the man’s equally adventurous in bed.
“Wow, that took a lot of guts. Talk about a total change of lifestyle.”

“My choice didn’t exactly get high approval ratings from my family. They’ve been rather burned with me ever since. But I’ve tried to explain that leading trips really fulfills me—much more than spending all day in a windowless classroom. And the weather outside London is just dreadful much of the year. Living by the ocean’s fabulous.”

“How often do you take tours out?”

“It depends. I slow down as we move into the monsoon season for obvious reasons. It becomes a damned swamp out there—not something tourists enjoy too much. I do have one swimming adventure trip to the South Pacific planned in September. The weather’s great there all year.”

“Swimming adventure?”

“The trips mostly attract triathletes who like to swim long distances in exotic places. But the water near Tahiti and Vanuatu is crystal clear—it’s like the underwater version of the desert—you can just see for miles down there.”

Bunny laughed. “I’d rather view marine life from behind the glass wall of an aquarium, thank you very much.”

Winston chuckled. “So you don’t like swimming and hiking through jungles. What do you like to do?”

“Before I met Jason, I played the piano, painted, and designed jewelry.”

Winston nodded and then turned toward her with a smile. “I play the piano, too. As a matter of fact, I have a keyboard at my house. You’re welcome to play, if you like.”

The more she got to know Winston, the more she liked him. She didn’t have to act fake around him. She could just relax and be the Bunny she once was. “I would like that very much. It’s been too long since I’ve played.”

“Why did you let that bastard stop you from what you enjoy most?”

Winston’s protective comment pleasantly warmed her insides. The man seemed to always know the right thing to say.
What if it’s a façade, like Jason?
She discarded the unpleasant thought. “He told me off the bat my piano wouldn’t fit in his house, so I told him I’d sold it even though I stored it with some other furniture I wanted to keep.”