Wild Orchids (27 page)

"Smack is the best painkiller in the world," he said matter-of-factly. "Just use a little when you have to."

"Thanks, man." Tunafish looked from the bag to Max's shadowed face. "For now, I think I'll try the aspirin." He swallowed the two in his hand, then tucked the bag of dope between two rocks. They said nothing more about it as Max caught Tunafish under his armpits and half-supported, half-carried him to one of the beds he had made of branches and leaves. Wrapped up in a blanket, his injured leg carefully supported by a strategically placed pillow, Tunafish still looked miserably uncomfortable. He was in pain, Lora knew.

"Here." Max handed her his pistol. She took it gingerly, careful to keep it pointed toward the mouth of the cave. "Like I said, don't try to fire it unless it's an emergency. If you hear or see anything the least bit suspicious, yell and I'll be right beside you. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Lora said, snapping him a mocking salute. He gave orders like he was born to it, which was fine, as long as he didn't think she was born to take them. In this particular situation, she was willing to do as he said to a certain extent, but she didn't want him getting the idea that he could bark orders at her like a drill sergeant.

He eyed her grimly, clearly not much liking her flippant response, but all he said was: "And don't forget to wake me in about two hours."

"I won't. Sir."

This earned her a scowl as he turned away to wrap himself in a blanket and lie down on the bed he had made. The three beds were close together, with not more than two feet of space separating one from the other. Max had chosen to sleep closest to the entrance, and his bed was not far from where she sat by the small fire. The bed in the center, complete with blanket and pillow, was empty, and Lora presumed it was for her. Tunafish lay on his back with eyes closed on the other side of the empty bed. Lora doubted that Tunafish was asleep, but from the soft snores that were already assaulting her ears, Max was. The man seemed to have a positive genius for falling asleep whenever and wherever he chose.

Lora stared at the long form that lay curled with its back to her. Shoulders hunched, rough black head pillowed on a bare forearm, the rest of him shrouded in a nondescript brown blanket, and snores rattling from his throat every fifteen seconds, he still appealed to her. She wanted nothing so much as to crawl over to that bedroll and curl up beside him… Lora remembered how his hands had felt on her body, how his lips had felt on hers, and shivered. What would it be like to make love with him—really make love with him, with both of them naked and her free to touch him as she liked? The very thought made a frisson of heat quiver up from her loins. It would be heaven—but the heaven would, eventually, lead to hell. For her, not him. She knew herself well enough to know that an affair based on nothing more than sex, however passionate, however longed for, was not for her. She needed more than that. She needed to know that he cared for her as a person, not just a female body, and the only one around at that. He was attracted to her, she knew, but she feared that his attraction might have its roots in nothing more than proximity, his hormones responding instinctively to the only game in town.

Lora thought over what Tunafish had told her about Max. He was divorced, he had served in Vietnam and been profoundly affected by the experience, he had worked for the government as an undercover agent, and had gotten into his present line of work because he felt responsible for some boy. And he hated drugs, yet he had given Tunafish a bag of heroin to ease his pain. Taken all together, the facts added considerable shadings to the tough-guy image he projected. They pointed to a sensitive, caring man hiding beneath a macho shell. Lora pondered that at some length, comparing all that she had learned during her experience as his captive with that conclusion. And, she decided, it fit pretty well. He had frightened her, but he hadn't really hurt her when she had provoked him a dozen times. Most men would have floored her if she had punched them in the nose—to say nothing of wrecking the car, kicking him in his bad knee, and trying repeatedly to escape. The kind of man she had thought him to be would have raped her, she thought. Max hadn't even taken advantage of her obvious attraction to him to so much as make a pass. She was honest enough to admit that she had instigated that encounter in Onega's bed… Even after that, he had not taken what another man might have decided he had earned. In all honesty, she almost wished he had. If he had taken her, then, she could have told herself that it was against her will. And that was much safer than admitting how much she wanted him…

Something had changed. Lora frowned, alert now. She didn't know what it was, but something had changed in the atmosphere around her. Had her subconscious sensed a sound that she hadn't consciously heard? Or… Her hand tightened on the gun, and she turned her head to call for Max. He still slept with his back to her, huddled into his blanket. As she looked at him, loathe to wake him for what might be no more than a foolish fancy, it struck her that he was no longer snoring. That was what had changed. The cave was now silent except for the harsh rasp of Tunafish's breathing. Looking over the bedrolls at Tunafish, Lora, thought that he might now be asleep.

Max was moving his head, and then his arms and legs, in small jerky movements that made Lora wonder if he was dreaming. Then he rolled over on his back, his head, no longer pillowed on his arm, tossing on the blanket beneath it. She frowned, watching him. He was scowling in his sleep, and a muscle was working at the corner of his mouth. And then, as she watched, he sat bolt upright. His eyes opened to stare blankly at nothing. The muscles in his arms clenched beneath the short sleeves of hist-shirt.

"No!" he cried, his voice hoarse. "Oh, God, no!"

Lora jumped at his cry, staring at him. He was shaking… It was a nightmare, she realized as she abandoned her post and the gun to rush to his side.

"Max!" she said, taking hold of his shoulder and giving it a hard shake. "Max, wake up!" His face turned toward her as she knelt beside him, and for a moment she thought she had gotten through to him. But his open eyes were still blind…

"Max!" she said again, and then his arms were coming around her, pulling her onto his lap, and he was hugging her to him as if she was the only warmth in a cold world. His hold was rough and painful, the strength of it threatening to crack her ribs, but she didn't care. Her heart ached for the pain that had caused him to reach for her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close, her hands coming up to stroke that rough black head. It burrowed into her shoulder. To her horror, she thought she heard the ragged indrawing of a sob.

"Max, darling," she whispered into his hair. "Max, it's all right. It's all right, darling. Shhh."

He continued to hold her so tightly she could hardly breathe, his arms imprisoning her like a straitjacket, the muscles of his thighs hard beneath her. Over his head she saw that Tunafish had awakened, and was watching them from beneath beetled brows. Lora held a finger to her lips when he would have spoken, and continued to stroke Max's hair. A tenderness like nothing she had ever known crept over her as she held him, this big, hard, rough-and-tough man, like a child in her arms. He needed her…

"Shhh, now…" She was crooning to him when he suddenly stiffened. She felt the change in him with every nerve in her body. Abruptly, he sat up, half a head taller than her even though she sat on his lap, and stared right into her eyes. He was awake, she saw, and started to smile at him, all gentleness and concern. He glared at her, those obsidian eyes crystal hard beneath ferocious brows. Lora stared back at him in surprise.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he growled.

"You had a nightmare," she said, thinking that he still did not understand.

"So what the hell is it to you?" he demanded roughly, his arms coming to remove her suddenly limp ones from around his neck and almost fling them back at her. He moved, practically dumping her off his lap, and got to his feet. His eyes as they moved over her looked like they hated her.

"Max…" Hurt surprise was in her voice, and his face tightened.

"I'll stand watch now. Go to bed." And with that he scooped up the gun and strode from the cave, leaving Lora to stare after him with wounded eyes. Tunafish whistled softly, and Lora turned to look at him.

"What did I do?"

He shook his head. "You comforted him. There are times when a man just can't take comfort, especially from a woman. And especially from a woman he likes like Max likes you."

Chapter XVI

He was in trouble. Max sat on a stone near the edge of the small, spring-fed pool he had found, and skipped a much smaller rock across the gleaming blue surface of the water as he faced the fact. It was just after noon of the following day, and he had been out looking for food when he stopped to quench his thirst with a couple of handfuls of water. As he stared down into it, the damned fathomless quality of the pool had reminded him of Lora's eyes. He cursed softly, hating the poetic thought. He never had poetic thoughts. They were as foreign to his nature as curses were to hers. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. She wasn't beautiful; he hadn't even thought she was more than passably attractive when he had first climbed into her car. And most of the women who had, in one way or another, left their mark on his life were pretty, at least, and exciting. He liked his women exciting. Lora certainly couldn't be described as exciting, not by any stretch of the imagination. She had a great body,granted, a body that he would give quite a bit to have naked and writhing beneath him at that precise moment, but though physically it was the match of any he'd possessed, Lora herself did not match her body. She was about as exciting as homemade bread. And he was a man used to a steady diet of chili sauce.

Maybe that was her attraction for him. Maybe, as old age crept up on him—he was thirty-seven, after all, only three years from forty—he was ready for milk instead of whiskey. Maybe he needed a change of pace. A prim little schoolteacher from the cornfields of Kansas, to be exact. Max thought of the last lady who had figured prominently in his life, and had to grin; whatever else Conchita was, she was certainly no lady. She was hot and wild and always ready, a tempestuous Latina with masses of curling black hair and eyes as dark as his own. And a body—Max thought of that body with the; appreciation of a connoisseur. Her body was womanly and ripe, just the way he liked his women to be. Though, he reflected, it wasn't any more voluptuous than Lora's…

The comparison annoyed him. What the hell was he doing, sitting out here on a rock in the middle of nowhere mooning about a woman who clearly regarded him as a cross between Al Capone and Richard Speck? Oh, she was hot for him, he knew. It would be damned easy to take her to bed if he wanted to. Max grinned without much humor. If he wanted to! Who was he kidding? He was dying to take her to bed, hungry to take her to bed, physically aching to take her to bed—but it went against the grain to make passionate love to a woman who looked at him at least half the time as if he'd just crawled out from under the nearest rock.