Where There's Smoke (69 page)

Their dirty clothes and muddy boots had made a mess of her bed.

Defying the curiosity of their guards as they crossed the hall, Key led her into his room, a mirror image of hers except that the tiles in his bathroom were turquoise and the shower curtain was decorated with smiling seahorses.

They removed their clothing and stepped beneath a shower from which they coaxed only rusty, tepid water.
 
Scanty bars of soap were wrapped in green cellophane.
 
They used up three of them to wash the grime off each other.

The water cooled but they stayed beneath the spray, exploring.

She examined the gash on his temple and told him that she could put a butterfly clamp on it.

He said, "Don't bother.
 
I'll live."

She examined his bruised ribs and told him that several were probably cracked.

He admitted that they hurt but wouldn't consent to her binding them.

"The night we met, you mummified me.
 
Damn bandage nearly drove me crazy.
 
I took it off the next day."

She called him hardheaded as she combed her fingers through his chest hair.
 
She cupped his weighty sex in her palms and sipped water from the delta-shaped hollow at the base of his larynx.

He covered the scar on her shoulder with tender kisses and called it beautiful when she demurred and tried to hide it.
 
"Besides, it's hardly a scratch compared to mine."

With her finger, she followed the raised, red surgical scar that ran up his left leg from knee to groin.
 
"What happened?"

He told her about the car wreck that had ruined his leg and all hopes for a career in the NFL.
 
"Were you terribly disappointed?
 
Is that what you wanted?"

"It's what Jody wanted.
 
We'd never been pals.
 
But after the accident . . " He shook his head.
 
"I don't want to talk about Jody."

He touched her everywhere, giving and taking pleasure in equal portions.
 
He was indulgent and sensual, more so than she would ever have believed.
 
She thought that surely she was dreaming, although she had never dreamed this erotically about her husband.

And never about Clark.

They finally left the bathroom and were foraging through their duffel bags for clean clothes when someone knocked on the door.

"What do you want?"
 
Key asked brusquely.

"Tengo Ia comida para ustedes."

Cautiously he eased open the door.
 
A soldier held a room service tray perched on his shoulder.
 
"Gracias."
 
Key took the tray of food from him and, without giving him time to argue, slammed the door in his face and slid the chain back into the track.

He set the tray on the table.
 
"I hope it's better than the fare at Sanchez's camp.

"It could be poisoned."
 
Lara approached the table, pulling her hairbrush through her wet hair.

"Could be, but I doubt it.
 
If he wanted to kill us, he wouldn't be that subtle.
 
He'd have done it when he had an audience."

On the tray were an assortment of fruits and cheeses, cold roasted chicken, and bottled water.
 
Key got a drumstick from the platter and without much interest took a bite.
 
"Wonder why he let us go."

She began to peel an orange.
 
"Odd, isn't it?"

"Damned odd.
 
I don't know what I expected, but not this."
 
He used the drumstick to point out their surroundings.
 
"Not exactly The Plaza, but better than a bamboo hut with a dirt floor."

He chewed thoughtfully.
 
"Bottom line.
 
Our lives in exchange for my taking his message' to the States?
 
Nope.
 
Doesn't jive.
 
Too easy.

If he wanted to convey a message to our government, he could have used someone more influential than us, the head of state of an ally nation, for instance."
 
He tossed aside the chicken bone and opened a bottle of water.
 
"Why didn't he kill us, Lara?"

She returned the half-peeled orange to the tray.
 
"I don't know."

Moving to the windows, she parted the drapes and gazed out over the city.

"That orange would do you good.
 
You haven't eaten all day."

She glanced back at the table with revulsion.
 
"I don't want to feel obligated to Emilio Sanchez for anything."

"Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
 
You should eat."

"I'm really not hungry, Key.
 
My mind isn't on my stomach."

There was an edge of impatience in her voice, most of it self-directed.

"I've been trying to sort through things."

"What things?"

"I don't know.
 
Things.
 
Everything.
 
About what happened here three years ago.
 
Randall.
 
Ashley.
 
If I dwell on that .
 
. . that mass grave she's buried in, I'll probably go mad."
 
She clutched a handful of drapery.
 
"So I can't.
 
I must concentrate on my memories of when she was alive.
 
I must remember how bright and happy she was, how much joy she gave me during the short time I had her."

Her hoarse voice began to waver.
 
She paused to compose herself.

"My daughter is lost to me, but if I focus on her life rather than her death, it doesn't matter so much where her body is buried.
 
Her spirit is still alive.
 
In that respect, this isn't a failed mission after all.

"You had to return here in order to come to terms with it."

She nodded.
 
"Yes.
 
That episode of my life all of it, beginning with the scandal-has been governing my life for far too long.
 
I accused everyone else of identifying me with tabloid headlines, but I'm the most guilty.
 
I can't continue regarding myself a victim.
 
It's time I got on with the rest of my life."

"In Eden Pass?"

"I haven't had much success there," she remarked as she turned to face him.

"Not because you aren t a good doctor, but because of us Tacketts.

We've given you a hell of a hard time."

Suddenly reluctant to look at him, she averted her head.

"Key, why did this happen between us?"

"The animosity?
 
Or the other?"

"The other."

He took a deep breath and held it, saying nothing for several moments.

Finally: "You're the doctor.
 
Got any theories?"

She did, and indicated so with a slight motion of her shoulders.

"People who've survived a life-threatening ordeal," she began slowly,

"frequently want sex directly afterward."
 
He raised one eyebrow, either with inquisitiveness or skepticism.
 
She wasn't sure.
 
"It makes sense.
 
Sex is the ultimate release of emotion, a means of unequivocally affirming life.

"I've had shamefaced patients confess to me that immediately following a funeral, they made love.
 
With extraordinary passion.

Human beings have an innate fear of death.
 
Sex is instant confirmation of survival.

"After the harrowing experiences we've been through the past few days, it follows that we'd expend our pent-up fears and emotions with sex.

Fierce, aggressive sex.
 
We're a classic example of this psychological phenomenon."

Key had listened politely.
 
Now he walked to her, coming so close that she had to tilt her head back in order to look into his face.

"Bullshit.
 
It happened because we wanted it to."
 
He kissed her hard and quick, stamping an impression of his lips on hers.
 
"Damned if it needs any more justification than that."

The clothes they had so recently put on were discarded as they made their way to the bed.
 
When the backs of his knees touched it, he sat down and guided Lara to stand between his thighs.
 
He lifted her breast to his mouth and flicked the nipple with his tongue.

Her eyes fluttered closed and choppy little breaths issued from her throat.
 
She wound strands of his hair around her fingers but allowed his head to move freely over her breasts and down the center of her body.
 
His beard rasped her belly, eliciting exciting and forbidden sensations.
 
Between her thighs she began to ache, deliciously.
 
The lips of her sex became swollen and warm.

Key splayed his hands over her bottom and tilted her middle up against his face.
 
He nuzzled her.
 
He kissed her navel.
 
He kissed the soft skin beneath it.
 
With little puffs of hear, his breath stirred her pubic hair.

Then he turned her, and she landed on her back on the bed, the juncture of her thighs forming a cradle for his lowering head.
 
He kissed her with unapologetic carnality.
 
His mouth gently drew on her while his nimble tongue taught her things about herself she didn't know.
 
As though inside her head, taking directions from her thoughts, he knew exactly when to probe, when to stroke, when to sink his mouth into her, and when to withdraw and caress her with the very tip of his tongue.

By the time he rose above her, she was sated, replete, dewy with perspiration, and drunk with passion.
 
Nevertheless, her slack lips awakened beneath his searching kiss.
 
When he entered her, it was a beginning, not a benediction.

Tenderly he traced the scar on her shoulder with his fingertip.
 
"It was bad, huh?"

"Very bad.
 
For a while the doctors believed that I'd be extremely lucky to regain only partial use of my arm.

"Knowing you, you were determined to prove them wrong.

"After the wound healed, I spent months in physical therapy."

For a moment he watched her reflectively.
 
"I think you should stop punishing yourself for not dying with the rest of your family, Lara."

"Is that what you think I'm about?"

"To an extent, yes.

She came up on an elbow and surveyed his lean, naked body.
 
In addition to the scar on his leg, there were many on his torso.
 
"What about you?

You're reckless.
 
You take senseless chances.
 
What are you punishing yourself for?"

"It's not the same thing," he answered crossly.
 
"I'm a thrillseeker for the sake of the thrill, that's all."

She gave him a look that said she wasn't buying it.
 
Her eyes wandered from one scar to the next.
 
There was a particularly wicked one cutting a jagged line across his ribs beneath his right arm.

"Knife fight," he said when she looked at him with a question in her eyes.

"Obviously you lost."

"Actually I won."

As to the fate of the loser, she was afraid to ask.
 
"And this?"

"Plane crash.
 
I walked away, but tore open my arm on a piece of fuselage."

She marveled at his nonchalance.
 
"Other than today, have you ever been in real danger of losing your life?"