Blooming in the Wild (18 page)

He paused and pulled her close to the hull. “Nope. We need a diversion.”

Above them, a woman screamed, a man shouted, and then gunfire rattled. Bella ducked with a squeak, clinging to Joel, but he pulled away. “That’s our diversion—Matt. Come on.”

Bella swam as quietly as she could around the back of the big yacht, her heart pounding as she peered at the railing above. But no armed gunmen appeared as Joel clambered out onto the boarding platform beside three shiny black-and-white Jet Skis. Each had an H emblazoned on the side.

Joel unfastened the first craft from its mooring cables and then pushed it into the water. As he did so, Tanah paddled around the back of the yacht, her wet hair hanging in her eyes. Cassie was behind her, eyes wide as saucers.

“Tanah,” Joel ordered. “Take this Jet Ski.”

The redhead nodded and scrambled awkwardly up onto the craft, then reached back for Cassie. The two had discarded their sarongs, and wore their bikinis.

“Oh, hurry,” Cassie pleaded.

Joel loosed another Jet Ski, and then the third. Pulling himself up over the back, he leaned over the ignition and then grasped the throttle and controls on the handles.

“Come on,” he said urgently, looking up at the boat as a man shouted something and more gunfire erupted.

Bella scrambled up out of the water, banging her knee, but made it onto the back of the padded vinyl seat. She threw her arms around Joel’s middle and hung on. The instant she did so, he hit the throttle, and the motor revved up in a loud snarl.

At that moment, Matt appeared over the back of the yacht, arcing into a flying dive, silhouetted against the sky for an instant. He landed in an awkward belly flop, and Cassie leapt from the back of Tanah’s Jet Ski onto the third craft, grabbing the throttles, her lovely face pale but determined.

“Get on,” she shrieked at Matt, who grasped the back of the craft and clambered aboard, hunched over as if he were hurt.

A burly silhouette appeared above them. Baldy, with his weapon aimed and ready.

“Go!”Bella screamed.

They sped off across the blue water toward the island, the little craft rocketing through the waves in a series of dizzying lifts and bumps. Bella held on tightly to Joel and tried not to watch the water zipping by at a horrific speed.

They had just started out when he suddenly cranked the wheel to the left, and then the right, zigzagging through the waves.

“What are you doing?” She fought to maintain her balance on the wet seat and her grip on his wet torso.

“They’re shooting at us,” he yelled back. “Just hang on.”

Bella looked back and saw the outline of the yacht shining in the sun. Foam spurted up from the water, a line of sharp bursts that followed them across the water, then disappeared as Joel took the craft in another swooping turn.

Her body rigid, waiting for the bullet that would strike her back, Bella hung on.

Joel slowed as they approached land and turned toward the west, and into the cove at Na’alele.

Bella opened her mouth to ask him why they didn’t keep going to Nawea, and remembered Frank. They had to go back and rescue him. She looked back to see the other two Jet Skis close behind as they slowed in the little bay and slid up to the beach.

“We can c-carry Frank up into the forest,” she said, her teeth chattering as Joel switched off the motor, “and h-hide him there. My cousins should be here any time now.”

“Hope so. Let’s go. Because for sure that crazy bitch will send her men after us any minute now.”

Bella scooted back on the seat and let him stand up and hop off the craft. He turned to hold out his hand to her, holding the Jet Ski steady with the other, and she smiled shakily at him.

“You l-look pretty good even with a black eye, hotshot.” And he did. He looked dashing and dangerous, with one eye swollen half shut and a livid bruise across his temple.

“You look damn hot in nothing but a pair of bikini bottoms and a lei,” he said. “What’s left of one, anyway.”

She yanked the lei over her head, tossing it into the water, and then stepped off into his arms. He pulled her close to him, her bare breasts against his chest. “I’ll buy you a lei when we get back,” he promised. “One that really means aloha.”

She kissed him. And as his mouth met hers at last, warm and firm and soft, opening to sup at her lips, tasting the wetness of her inner lip, then pressing hard, his breath mingling with hers, she believed they would make it happen.

“For God’s sake come on,” demanded Tanah from the beach. “We’ve got a crazy woman after us, in case you two have forgotten.”

“Coming.” Joel stepped back, but he kept Bella’s hand in his as they hurried up to the cave.

To Do: A skilled tour director will use advance knowledge to make sure her clients see the best each site along the tour has to offer
.

Frank was not in the cave, nor did he answer Joel’s calls as they trekked up across the camp.

Bella pulled on a brown tank top, and everyone rifled their bags for shoes. Then Bella climbed the fig trees, Joel close behind her. The weapon was gone. Joel only hoped Frank had it and not Kobe and Eddy, or whoever the hell else Camille had crawling through the forest.

“I’m trying my cell phone again,” Tanah said as soon as she’d pulled a Tshirt over her wet bikini. She plopped down on a camp chair.

“Good. Try mine too.” Joel handed her his phone.

Bella and Joel searched the tunnel and even called Frank’s name into the echoing black depths but heard no answer.

“All right,” Joel said as they walked back out into the main cave. “He’s gone—somewhere. We have to go too.”

“We have to find him,” Bella said.

“We can’t help him if we’re dead,” Matt said, already headed outside. “Let’s get the Jet Skis, and get out of here.”

“Anything on either of our phones?” Joel asked Tanah.

She shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “What are we going to do, Joel?”

“We’re going to find Frank,” Bella said. “And then we’ll—”

“Nani,” Joel said firmly, fixing her with a look from his good eye. “We have to get everyone safe. Camille’s men will be back. She’s a psycho bitch, and she’s not going to give up this easily. Come on, we’re leaving.”

“I’m ready,” Cassie was already at the cave door, huddled in a cover-up and broad-brimmed hat. Her pale hair straggled around her sunburned face.

Bella opened her mouth to protest and cocked her head, almost as if she were listening to something only she could hear in the rustling of the fig trees outside the cave. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

“What?”

“They’re coming,” Bella said.

Matt burst back into the cave, breathing heavily. He was pale and pressed one hand to his side. “I don’t think…we can make it to…the Jet Skis. They’re…coming back…in the raft.”

“Hell. We’ll head up into the forest,” Joel decided quickly. “Okay, everyone, move. Get your bags, and get to the trail.”

Bella and Joel grabbed two extra provision bags and dumped them out.

Bella opened the nearest cooler and quickly chose a few Tupperware containers. Barbecued pork, bread and something that looked like rice. Joel reached into the other cooler for bottles of water and juice. He threw in a few cans of soda and beer into each bag too. It was all liquid.

Shouldering the bags, he strode over and grabbed his duffel and went to stand in the mouth of the cave. “Come on,” he ordered, peering out at the sea. “I can see them, about halfway here from the yacht.”

Bella grabbed her bag and followed him out of the cave. “Wait—a sleeping bag.”

Joel turned on her. “Damn it, woman,
come on
.”

She trotted back out in a second, sleeping bag under one arm, her duffel over the other.

“Bella, you lead the way. Matt, you three go next,” Joel said grimly. “That way I won’t outdistance you, and I can watch our back trail.” And he could grab Bella if she got another great idea about something they “needed”, like the tent hanging in the trees on the other side of camp. She’d sure gotten her confidence back the moment they stepped onto land. Oh, well, preferable to the humiliation and fear he’d seen in those black velvet eyes on the yacht.

Despite their loads, Bella set a swift pace up into the trees, not even slowing at the lower grotto.

“We can probably stop here,” Joel said.

“Yeah,” panted Tanah. “I have to rest.”

“Matt needs to stop,” Cassie said urgently. “What’s wrong?”

Joel turned to see the young Hawaiian bent over, an arm clamped to his midriff. “I think I cracked a rib when I dove off that yacht,” he groaned. “I gotta lie down.”

“Are you sure you want to stop here?” Bella asked, looking down on them from the shadowed trail.

“Look at him,” Cassie said, her face crumpling. “He can hardly walk.”

“We’ll hide,” Tanah added, moving over to take Matt’s arm. “Come on.”

“Walk around the pool, and stay hidden among the rocks,” Bella advised. “No one will find you there.”

Joel looked at her. “Aren’t you stopping here?”

She shook her head. “No, we have to keep going. Up to the top of the waterfall. We can keep watch from there.”

She had an excellent point. Joel handed Cassie one of the bags of food and water, patted her shoulder and followed Bella up the steep trail. His head was beginning to throb like a son of a bitch, and his bag of food, water and beer seemed heavier with every yard they climbed.

He reminded himself that it wasn’t as heavy as the packs he’d toted on week-long treks into the wilds on other continents. And that Bella was safe from that crazy woman, and he meant to see that she stayed that way.

Bella ventured off the trail at the top of the steep climb, and Joel followed her through the thick underbrush. He ducked to step in under the heavy branches of a fig. Straightening, he looked around in amazement. He’d peered through the branches at her, but he hadn’t seen all this little place had to offer.

“I’ll be damned,” he said, letting the bags slide to the ground. They stood in a small lava bowl of sorts, open on one side to the sea. It lay mostly in the sun, but their side was shaded by the trees hanging over the pool of water dammed by the lip of the bowl. Joel could see that it would all be in shadow as the afternoon went on. Good, because the air was heating up with the sun, around eighty, by his estimate.

The clear stream trickled over the edge of the bowl. They’d have to stay away from that edge, but they could take a quick bath if they wanted and not be in any danger of floating over.

Peering cautiously through the branches of another shrub, Joel saw that a cliff dropped away below them. They’d followed the curve of the lava flow and were right over the camp. This was the smaller waterfall he’d seen from the boat, he realized.

“Huh. Nice view,” he murmured. “And there are Camille’s men. Now what are they up to?”

The motorized dinghy rocked on the surf outside the little bay. Bending to his duffel, Joel pulled out his little binoculars. He adjusted them and trained them on the craft, making sure to stay behind the cover of the foliage.

“Three men,” he told Bella. “They’re pointing at the Jet Skis we borrowed. They’re consulting. Now, they’re riding two, hauling the other one, headed back to the yacht. Not coming after us yet.” He’d much rather they hadn’t taken the only transportation either, but at least it gave him a little time to figure out how he was getting her and the trio out of here.

He swung the binoculars until he found the yacht and adjusted them, searching the portholes.

“Did you see Camille?” Bella asked.

“No, and I don’t want to. Come on, let’s try our phones again. They should work.” But the same “out of service area” symbol blinked at them from both phones. “Damn it!” Joel flung his phone onto his duffel and lifted his hands to shove back his tousled hair. “I just don’t get it. What the hell is jamming the signals?”

“Maybe Camille is doing that too,” Bella said wryly.

Joel looked at her. “You know,” he said, “you may have a point there. You can buy all kinds of tech gear now online, and if she’s wealthy enough to own that yacht… Maybe she’s got some kind of jammer operating from on board, or hidden in the woods here somewhere.”

She nodded. “She certainly has hired some scary enforcers. How on earth did you and the others get away from Camille’s armed men?”

Joel’s stomach growled loudly. “I’ll tell you over lunch. I’m starving, and you must be too.”

She shook her head. She sat down on the rolled-up sleeping bag, looking suddenly exhausted. “I thought—we were going to die out there,” she said. “And I—I thought he was going to…rape me.”

She looked at Joel, her mouth quivering. “And you acted as if you didn’t even know me.”

He winced, making his head throb worse. “I thought Matt was right, and that Camille was after me, or him
and
me. I figured if I paid attention to you, she’d get even more irrational and jealous.”

She accepted this with a nod and sniffled. “But then you protected me. Mahalo. That was really sweet.”

“The bitch wanted to humiliate you.” He looked her in the eye. “But she didn’t succeed, because you’re a tough tita.”

She smiled, or tried to. “Li said he was going to c-cut me. I’ve never been so frightened, Joel.”

He ached to take her in his arms, but something told him to hold off. He needed to feed her first. She was a little shocky and needed energy. “Of course you were,” he said. “Guy’s a slime ball. Bet he isn’t feeling too chipper now. Explain to me what the hell you did to him?”

He dug in his bag and pulled out a couple of sugared colas and handed one to her. “Drink this.”

She sipped hers while he slapped together a quick meal. Between bites of a barbecued pork sandwich and the macaroni salad he fed her from his own fork, Bella recounted her quick thinking with the flowers in the bouquet. By the time she was finished, the sparkle was back in her eyes and she was eating with more energy, if not enjoyment.

“That’s one to tell your grandkids around the campfire,” he said. “I can’t believe you knew to do that. Not too many people would.”

She shrugged. “They would if they were florists.”

He raised his eyebrows at that. “I guess. But it was damn lucky that bouquet fell over in your struggle with him.”

She stopped with her sandwich in her hand, gazing at something only she could see in the clear pool. Then she looked over at him. “Yes,” she said. “Lucky.”

A small shiver rippled across his skin. Sometimes, she could be a little eerie. He shook his head at his own imagination. He’d met natives of lands far away who spent their entire existence in the shadows of the jungle, and some of them had a kind of knowing that was mysterious to his Western mind, but this was no native woman. It was Bella.

Joel took her empty plate and soda can and set it with his.

“What happened after I…after Li dragged me away?” she asked. “I saw that thug hit you. And that reminds me, I want to put something on your bruise. I have a first aid kit in my bag. DelRay’s mini-special,” she joked.

Joel nodded and then winced as the motion made his head throb. “I wouldn’t say no to a painkiller.”

As she fished in her bag, he began to talk. “When an opponent gets close enough to hit you, that means they’re within your reach too. I went a little crazy, I guess, worrying what Li would do to you. I managed to grab the big guy’s legs in a scissor hold and knock him down. At that point, Matt leapt into action and wrestled the weapon away from him.”

Bella handed him two painkiller tablets, and he swallowed them with a last drink of soda. “Never would have expected it of the kid,” he went on. “Or that Tanah and Cassie would manage to drop that awning on Camille.”

She grinned. “They dropped the awning on her?”

“Damnedest thing,” he agreed. “Don’t think it hurt her, but it gave us time to come up with a plan. I’d go after you, and we’d meet at the back and try to grab either the raft or the Jet Skis. They’d follow if they could, but if that didn’t work, barricade themselves in one of the cabins with the weapon and wait for us to bring back help—and the law.”

“Wow,” Bella said, stunned. “You were all so tough.”

He gave her a look. “You were the toughest of all, tita. That little creep is scary, but you faced him down and got away with only a scratch.”

He indicated a spot on his throat, looking at hers, and she touched the spot, wincing at the sore, puffy place where Li had pricked her with his knife.

Joel moved to kneel before her, the tube of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit in his hand. He squeezed out a blob and gently smoothed it over the scratch. “There. All better.” At least it would be when he got a few moments alone with that little scumbag. He was going to turn the dude’s smirking face into mincemeat.

“Mahalo.”

He looked up into her eyes, as pretty as sooty blooms, and he wanted to sweep her into his arms and promise that no one would ever be able to hurt her again. But he couldn’t promise that, and what the hell was he doing, even thinking it? So instead he rose and walked to the edge of the pool.

“How about a quick bath?” he suggested and dropped his shorts on the bank and walked into the water. The pool was hip-deep in the middle, the water chilly at the bottom but warmed by the sun at the surface. “I want the blood off of you and the salt water off of both of us.”

He turned to Bella and found her watching him. The look on her face sent arousal shooting straight to his groin. His cock stiffened even as the cool water washed at his sac, tightening it up. The contrast of heat and chill was erotic as hell, as was the idea of her heat surrounding him.

He smiled at her, wincing as the motion pulled at his swollen cheek.

“Come on in, nani girl,” he suggested, his voice deep in the sudden hush that seemed to grip the surrounding forest.

“Shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“The most important thing we can do right now is keep you safe,” he said. “And happy. Why don’t you come on in here and let me make you real happy?”

She gave him that disgusted look he guessed women had been giving men since the beginning of time, the one that said he had a one-track mind. But it changed to speculation, and as he watched, fascinated, a rosy blush chased the last of the paleness from her cheeks, and she bit her lower lip, letting it slide through her white teeth, wet and pink in the sunshine pouring over her.

“How about if I make you even happier?” she replied in that way she had, like it was a contest between them. That was okay with him. They’d both win.

When she pulled her tank over her head and let it fall aside, Joel forgot the question. And when she reached down and hitched her thumbs in the strings of her little bikini bottoms and shoved them down her pretty legs, revealing her small triangle of sooty curls, he forgot everything except the heat roaring through him.