Wild Orchids (37 page)

Lora had only been asleep for a couple of hours when something—a faint, distant roar—startled her awake. Not that the sound was particularly loud. It was just the incongruity of it—man-made, mechanical droning out in the middle of the jungle. She started upright, frowning and blinking, to find Max snatching up the first aid kit and sprinting outside while Tunafish craned to see what was happening from his perch on the rocks just inside the cave's mouth.

"What is it?" she asked, scrambling up.

"Airplane overhead," Tunafish answered tersely, barely  sparing her a glance as she joined him to look out at Max, who was tilting the silver metal surface of the underside of the first aid box so that it caught the sun. The roar was louder now, and Lora strained to see through the branches hanging out over the clifftop. She caught just a glimpse of a small white plane as it swooped overhead.

"We're here!" she cried, waving frantically. The certain knowledge that the plane's occupants could neither see nor hear her made her stop. Max was still signaling with the first aid kit, but already the droning of the plane was fading. It was moving away.

"He didn't see us." Lora felt disappointment knot sickly in her stomach. She had not realized how badly she wanted to be safely back in civilization until that plane appeared.

"Maybe. Maybe not. He couldn't land even if he did. The only kind of aircraft that might be able to put down up here is a helicopter. Even if the pilot of that plane saw us, he would have to radio for reinforcements. He couldn't do anything himself."

"Oh." Max's calm pronouncement made her feel a little better..

"Who was it? Could you tell?" The urgency of Tunafish's question reminded Lora that even if the pilot had seen them, it didn't necessarily mean that they were any better off. If that plane had been sent by the mob, or the feds, they could be in serious trouble.

"No way to tell. The plane was unmarked, but that doesn't mean anything. The feds wouldn't be using marked planes for an operation like this." Max answered Tunafish as he moved back inside the cave.

Lora moved, too, sinking down on the rock beside Tunafish disconsolately. She had been so caught up in the magic of what was happening between her and Max that she had temporarily forgotten the danger they faced. But now she remembered, and the memory shook her—the danger seemed suddenly close at hand. When rescue did arrive—if it could even be termed rescue under the circumstances—the idyll she shared with Max would be shattered. If Minelli's friends were the victors in this race for the drugs, she and Max and Tunafish faced death. Their prospects with the feds were only slightly better. From her previous experience with the Mexican system of law enforcement, she imagined that they would all, herself included, face years of imprisonment. Only if Ortega arrived first would they be saved—maybe. Lora didn't like to admit the tiny niggle of doubt, but it would not be banished. Like Tunafish, she didn't have much faith in Ortega's trust-worthiness. Across the cave, Minelli and DiAngelo were sitting upright, their eyes gleaming with interest as they listened silently to this exchange. Looking at them, Lora shuddered inwardly. If their friends should come out on top, she knew that she—to say nothing of Max and Tunafish— could expect no mercy.

"Hey." Seeing her wan face. Max caught her chin in his hand and lilted it so that her eyes met his. "Stop worrying. That plane might not even have been looking for us—or it might have been some of Ortega's men. But worrying's not going to change who it was. So you might as well put it out of your mind. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it when it happens. And we'll come out okay. Trust me."

Beside her, Tunafish snorted. Max shot him a killing glare. But as Lora turned his words over in her mind, she realized that he was right: worrying would not change a thing. She ought to concentrate on making the most out of whatever amount of time she and Max had left, and put the uncertain future out of her mind. She smiled at Max, and he smiled back, looking relieved as he released her chin. Whatever happened, she was resolved to take what came one day at a time.

* * *

Max promised Lora great sex, and he delivered. For the next two days, anytime he was not busy they went off alone together. They returned to the waterfall, and made love in the pool itself. They returned to the plane, and agreed that the second occasion there was even better than the first. They made love lying on flat, sun-warmed rocks, standing up with Max's back to a tree and Lora astride, sitting on an overturned tree trunk. They made love until Lora was worn out and Max had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. They made love until they both were satisfied—temporarily. And then they made love again.

For Lora, it was a time of wonder. Although she had found Brian's lovemaking mildly pleasant, she had always thought that sex was somewhat overrated. Once, when she had overheard some of her girl students talking about being horny, and wailing that they would die if they didn't "do it" soon, she had been slightly shocked—nothing those teenagers could do could shock her much, after four years of teaching—but also curious. Did other females really feel that way? She didn't think that she had ever experienced a state that could be described as "horny"—detestable word!—and had certainly never thought that she might die if she didn't have sex. It was supposed to be a basic human need, like hunger and shelter, but she had never experienced her sexuality that way. In fact, she had never really thought of herself as having a sexuality. She made love with Brian because that is what engaged couples did nowadays, and she enjoyed it when it happened. It was all very civilized, very dignified, very controlled. She had found Brian's touch pleasant, and had therefore assumed that all was well in that area of their relationship. Smiling a little, Lora told herself that she hadn't known what she had been missing.

Making love with Max was a soul shattering experience that only improved with repetition. Lora had never dreamed her body could feel the way he made hers feel. She had only to look at him to feel her body quicken. And it wasn't because he was exceptionally handsome, because he wasn't.

Even as besotted as she was, she hadn't changed her opinion about that! Granted, he had a gorgeous body, but so did the Incredible Hulk and he had never done a thing for her temperature. No, it was something about Max himself. Lora didn't know what it was, couldn't find a single, isolated quality that made her react to him like a match to friction, but her response to him was nothing short of devastating. He thrilled her in ways she hadn't known existed, and she palpitated just thinking about them. And him.

Sexy. That was the word her students would have used to describe him, and it fit him to a tee. Everything about him quickened her senses, from his shaggy black hair to his size eleven running shoes. She had only to look into those narrowed black eyes, gleaming with wicked knowledge now whenever they met hers, to feel her heart start to beat faster. Her pulses fluttered over the configuration of battle-scarred nose, lean, bronzed cheeks, and square, unshaven chin. She even liked that ferocious mustache! She loved the way it trickled and rasped when that hard mouth trailed over her soft skin. And it went without saying how she felt about the rest of him. Broad shoulders, wide, hairy chest, narrow hips and long legs were definitely her cup of tea. Funny, she had always thought that thin, bespectacled, intellectual types like Brian attracted her. Lora had to smile at her own naivete. Who would have guessed that she, Lora Harding, would buckle at the knees over a hunk of male beef?

There was more to it than sex, of course. Much more. She loved him. And that surprised her even more than the way he could make her body feel. He was not her type, and that was the truth, but it didn't seem to make any difference. He had lived a hard life and it showed; he was right at home with the violence that was so much a part of his existence; he handled guns with a familiarity that should have given her pause. He had killed, she knew, and while what had happened in Vietnam might be excusable because he had been fighting a war, she had a suspicion that he had killed again in his work with the DBA. And she knew him well enough to know that he would kill again, if necessary. If Minelli or DiAngelo were to become a threat to their security, she had no doubts at all that he would take what steps he deemed prudent to eliminate that threat. And them along with it.

How could she love a man like that? Lora had asked herself that question many times. He was alien to anything she had ever known, to any expectations she had had of the kind of man with whom she would want to spend the rest of her life. But she loved him. There was no rhyme or reason to it. She loved him, and that was that.

He could be gentle. He was gentle with her. He was a man with a conscience, a sensitive, thinking man, as the nightmares he still suffered about what had happened at Mei Veng showed. He was a loyal friend; he could have left Tunafish to fend for himself and walked out of the jungle. Lora had no doubt at all that he would have made it through safely. Max was a survivor, if ever she had known one. And he was a man of honor. He had had her in a position where she was totally in his power in the early days after he had kidnapped her, and he had behaved, if not like a total gentleman, then at least better than many men would have done. He had neither raped her nor sexually molested her nor beaten her. And she had certainly given him cause to knock her senseless, at least. Lora remembered punching him in the nose, and her eyes danced and moved to seek out the object of her amusement, who was leaning a shoulder against the curved rock at the mouth of the cave, back turned, gun resting negligently against a muscular thigh as he studied the landscape below.

He wasn't aware of her eyes on him, but Lora smiled very tenderly at him nonetheless. Clad in filthy running shoes, tattered, faded jeans that were threatening to split in a dozen places, and a once-white t-shirt that was permanently stained with an infinite variety of substances, with more than a week's growth of black beard bristling from his cheeks and chin and a deadly looking pistol dangling negligently from his hand, he was definitely not the stuff of her adolescent dreams of romance. And still she loved him madly.

"Hey, babe, if you're spreading hot stuff around, why don't you spread a little this way? I know how to treat a broad right." Minelli's voice interrupted her reverie, and she looked down at him with distaste. He was filthy, too, his oily face obscured with whiskers, his clothes creased and stained. But he awakened only the liveliest repulsion inside her.

"I bet you do." Her words were dry as she handed him his lunch of one banana and one orange. He took the fruit from her, his stubby fingers brushing hers until she pulled them away pointedly, his eyes moving over her avidly, resting with a suggestive leer on her breasts. Lora had to suppress a shudder. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing he bothered her. She turned a shoulder on him to hand DiAngelo his fruit, glad that the smaller man was too sullenly miserable to be offensive any longer.

"You ought to give it some thought, babe. Big man up there won't be in charge forever. When my friends get here, everything's going to change, and you better start thinking about getting on the right side."

"I am on the right side." Lora moved away as she said it. She knew she ought to ignore Minelli, but he gave her the creeps. Having him in the cave was like having a fat white slug in a garden. She crossed to sit down next to Tunafish, who was munching his banana with a gloomy expression.

Tunafish took another bite out of his fruit, then looked sideways to watch her peel her own.

"You oughta tell Max if that slime-bag bothers you."

"You heard him, huh?"

"Enough to know that he needs his mouth punched. Ordinarily, I'd be glad to oblige, but… " He gestured at his splinted leg. "But Max'll take care of him for you."

Lora bit off a small portion of her banana and made a wry face. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Tunafish looked at her reflectively. "Afraid the boss might make it permanent, is that it? Well, you could be right. I ain't never seen him protectin' his woman before, but I once saw him break a man's neck over an airplane. And a woman is a lot more important than an airplane."

"I'm not his 'woman,' Tunafish." Her tone was repressive, and she concentrated on taking a series of small nibbles out of the side of her banana. She had always hated that term, and besides, it wasn't true. And even if it was, she hated everyone knowing. Anyone knowing. She wasn't comfortable enough with it herself yet. Anyway, true or not, she refused to be known as Max Maxwell's "woman"!

"Yeah. That's why the two of you are always sneakin' off someplace, and why Max ain't had more than two hours' sleep in two days, and why he was whistlin' under his breath this morning. I didn't even know the boss could whistle.

"He was whistling?" Despite herself, she had to follow up on this. The idea intrigued her. If Max was whistling, it must mean he was happy, and if he was happy in their current predicament then she had to be the reason. And she liked knowing that she made him happy. It was a step in the right direction.

"Mmm-hmmm. Sounded real cheerful. Ain't like Max."

Lora thought about that, then smiled suddenly at Tunafish. "Thanks," she said softly.

"What for?"

"For being such a nice man. For being my friend."

Tunafish looked suddenly embarrassed. His eyes dropped to his banana and he took a large bite.

" 'S okay," he said around the mouthful. "Any friend of the boss's, you know."

"Yeah, I know," she said, mimicking his mumble. "Me, too." And with another warm smile at him she stood up and went to join Max at the mouth of the cave.

"You and Tunafish looked mighty cozy."

"Jealous?" The saucy question made him frown.

"Nope."

"Good. Then I won't have to worry about damaging your friendship when I tell you that I think Tunafish is a fantastic person."

"I think so, too. So does his wife, and three little kiddies." Max was grinning as he produced this information like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of his hat.