Heather Graham (19 page)

“Should we just leave and go back?”

“We can’t go back.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t see that there were no boats?”

“I—are you sure? Maybe it was the wrong place—”

“It was the right place. There were no boats.”

“My God, then what—”

“We’ll have to head my way.”

“To where?”

“To a shelter.”

“A shelter! We’ve got to get out of the swamp.”

“I know. For now...”

He pulled something from his pocket. Ann realized that it was a cellular phone.

“Oh, thank God! Someone will come for us.”

“I don’t know if I can get through. And I don’t know if anyone can get out.”

The tree at Ann’s side suddenly began to move. A branch—moved. And it suddenly dropped right from the tree and onto her.

She let out a shriek of terror, jumping back.

Slamming into Mark.

Mark swore.

The tree branch slithered away.

The cellular phone went flying out of his hand. Into the darkness. Into the mud and muck.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled.

“It was a snake!”

“It was a harmless little tree snake.”

“Quit shouting at me and find the phone.”

“Excuse me! I wasn’t the one having a heart attack over a pathetic little tree snake.”

“It wasn’t little.”

“It was tiny.”

“The hell it was.”

“Get the phone!”

Swearing away, he started looking for the phone. Ann fell down on her knees beside him. All she could feel was mud and muck. The rain continued to pelt down upon them. She rose. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was beginning to sink.

His arms were on her, wresting her away from the spot where she had stood. The mud let out a horrible, sucking sound.

“Idiot!” he railed in the darkness and cold, blinding rain.

“What?”

“Quicksand.”

“Quicksand?”

“Swamp hazard. Use some God-given sense when you feel yourself being pulled down.”

Tears of fear and anger stung her eyes. She blinked them away furiously.

“I feel as if I’m being sucked down with every step I take.”

“Well, the phone is gone. Gone, have you got that!”

“I’m sorry! Sorrier than you’ll ever know!”

He stared at her. They were both being pelted. “Damned thing probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

“Maybe not.”

“Just follow me. And quit giving me a hard time.”

“I’m not giving you a hard time!”

He started walking again, retracing the steps he had already taken. They came back to the water’s edge, and he kept walking, into water that came nearly to Ann’s waist.

“Mark!”

He didn’t respond at first.

“Mark, damn you, where do you think we’re going? What are we doing?”

“We can’t go back the other way!”

“We can’t walk through the damned water.”

“We have to!”

“Let’s try going back. Come on, you’re a cop; you can do something.”

“Damn it, Ann, I can’t shoot my way through fallen trees!”

He started moving again. She dragged back on him, frightened. Tree branches fell along the water’s edge like giant, skeletal fingers. Roots tripped her with every step she tried to take.

More of the branches, she was certain, moved upon occasion.

Her teeth chattered. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t keep going.

Ann caught hold of his shoulders, drawing herself up enough to shout against the back of his ear. “I know—there are no poisonous snakes out here, right?”

He turned to her. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a bayou. There are poisonous snakes.”

“Shit!”

“Don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”

“Right! I can see what I’m stepping on!”

He stopped, swirling around on her. “You got a better idea what we should do?”

She stared at him blankly, clothes completely plastered to her body, shivering, hair glued to her face in clumps, water dripping from her nose. “Piggyback,” he told her suddenly. “It will get your feet out of the mud at least.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “No, I’m all right. Lead on.”

He did so. It seemed to Ann that they walked forever. It might have been only a few minutes.

Suddenly, they hit an area where the mud was so soft beneath the water that she tripped into it, falling beneath the water’s surface.

Before she could right herself, he had pulled her up, placing his arms beneath her body. She instinctively slipped her arms around his neck. His eyes on hers, he started walking again.

“You—you don’t have to carry me. You won’t get very far that way.”

“You’re not that heavy.”

“Heavy enough in the rain and the muck.”

“It’s not that much farther.”

“What’s not that much farther?”

“You’ll see. We’re almost there.”

She bit into her lower lip. She was miserable, naturally. She was saturated in rain and mud, and worried about her new friends. But he was right; Cindy and Gregory were together. Mama Lili Mae was in her element in the swamp.

And she wasn’t alone anymore. She was in his arms. He even looked good soaked. In mud. She felt the silver-gray of his eyes touching hers through that mud, and though she was drenched and cold, that touch warmed. Burned. Sizzled through her.

“Ahead,” he said suddenly, gruffly.

He let her slip to her feet. The darkness was so complete that for a moment, she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she saw the structure looming before her, up on a high mound. The water was rising all around it, but the cabin sat very high above it all.

“Come on.” He tugged on her hand. He was running as he led her, up something that might have been a walkway to a huge cypress overhang. Beneath it, he released her hand, leaning against a wall of the log cabin, inhaling vigorously. Ann gasped for breath as well, watching the rain as it continued to fall beyond the overhang.

“A drink,” Mark muttered.

“A drink?”

He turned then, pressing open the door to the cabin. Ann entered behind him, moving precariously. Inside the cabin, it was as dark as India ink.

“Let me just get my shoes off...”

She heard a thumping, then suddenly, the flare of a match. A second later, the cabin was filled with a soft glowing light as Mark used the long match he had struck to ignite the wick of a large oil lamp.

Incredulously, Ann looked around. It was a one-room cabin, kind of like Mama Lili Mae’s living room, except that this combined sitting room with bedroom and kitchen. There was a double bed covered in an old-fashioned quilt to one side of the cabin, a desk and chair in the middle, a round table with four chairs near the kitchen, and a counter and cabinets and a gas stove and sink to make up the kitchen itself. Like Mama Lili Mae’s, the sink was old fashioned, the pump kind. To the rear of the room was a large fireplace with kindling and logs set.

“I’ll just start a fire,” Mark said.

Ann stayed near the doorway, unsure.

“Whose—whose is this?”

He turned around and stared at her, a brow arched. “Mine.”

“Yours?”

He watched her. “Mine. Is that so surprising.”

“I—I just didn’t know—”

“That I hailed from the swamp? Why, Mrs. Marcel, you are talking to an original coon.”

“Cajun.”

He didn’t reply. He turned back to the fire, though it seemed little effort to ignite. Everything had been left in readiness in the cabin for the arrival of its owner. Kindling was already set on logs. He had only to poke the fire a few times to get it started on its way to a steady blaze. He rose, staring at her.

“You can do what you want. The shower’s outside. I’m not wearing mud all night.”

“Shower’s—outside.”

“Yep.”

He opened a door that led to a half bath. There was a toilet and a sink—manned by a pump once again. But there was a small closet in it as well. He dug around until he found a couple of functional white towels, then dug some more. He tossed her something. It was a huge flannel shirt.

“I think it’s probably the best I can do. You’re welcome to dig around in here.”

He crossed the room with his towel and exited the cabin. Ann stared after him, numb. She shook out the shirt he had given her.

She wasn’t taking a shower. She couldn’t. She had wanted him, did want him, but this...

This was unbelievable. And he was still yelling at her. And worse, he was here.

What was he doing out here? He had a cabin out here. But he had just happened to crash into her out in the swamp. She set the flannel shirt down on the bed, then turned in sudden fury, ready to demand answers. She went on outside and saw that the shower was indeed outside the cabin, connected to the wall, drawing water from a well. To pump it, Mark was pulling on a cord that sent new waves of fresh water crashing down on him time and time again.

He was naked.

He was all that she had imagined. Broad shoulders, taut body, extremely well toned. Water and mud sluiced from his chest. His arm and shoulder muscles rippled and stretched as he worked the pull pump with one hand and scrubbed the mud from himself with the other.

The hair on his chest was very wet and very dark, swirling down to a thin line at his waist, then swirling down again below his waist to form a thick dark nest for his sex. She stared at him, forgetting what she had come to say.

Oh, God, yes. He was all that she had imagined.

And more.

But, oh, God. She was pointedly staring at him.

He returned her stare.

She turned on her heels and headed quickly back into the cabin.

She’d talk to him when he was dressed.

A few minutes later, he came through the cabin door again, wrapped in a terry robe, drying his hair with his towel. “Shower’s all yours,” he said.

She was about to tell him that she simply wasn’t going to shower.

And what would that prove?

She was dying for a shower, even if it was icy cold. He looked so good, so comfortable, no longer clad in inches of black mud. The stuff itched. She felt as if things crawled in it. She had to take a shower.

“Thanks,” she muttered curtly, moving for the door with her towel and shirt.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Like what?”

“Soap appeal to you?”

He tossed the bar over. She caught it reflexively. “Thanks. Thanks so much,” she muttered, and quickly stepped outside.

Once on the porch, she hesitated. She looked around nervously as she shed her clothing. Who was she expecting to come peeping at her during this storm in this wilderness. No one.

But there was Mark.

He didn’t come out. He wouldn’t come out, she determined. He was the one who had pulled away last night, cussing at her. Oh, God, it felt so good to be out of her clothes. Had there been leeches in them? Were there leeches in the swamp? Probably. Anything at all could be in her clothing.

Suddenly, she could not be completely stripped quickly enough. Then she couldn’t man the pull pump quickly enough. She brought cascade after cascade of water tumbling down over her hair. She ran her free fingers through it again and again, until she was convinced that she had rinsed it all to the very best of her ability. She closed her eyes. The water was cold; viciously cold. It didn’t matter. Shivering, shaking, she brought more and more of it down upon herself, sluicing it over her breasts and belly, her legs. She closed her eyes again while she splashed her face. She opened her eyes.

Mark.

He was standing there. Next to her.

She had been wrong. He had come out.

There was shadow and light around them on the porch now, with the glow from the oil lamp radiating from the windows that lined the cabin. His eyes seemed to be pure silver; his face was angled and planed in such a way that he seemed incredibly tense...

Masculine. Threateningly masculine...

In a way that sent heat streaking through her with the pure power of lightning.

Her throat went dry.

Her heart fluttered.

Her breathing came in rasps.

“I thought you might need help with your hair,” he shouted over the wind and the rain that pummeled on beyond the overhang of the porch and the shower beneath it.

His eyes sizzled into hers. But then they fell from her face, to her breasts, to her belly. To the juncture of her thighs. The burning seemed to run rampant within her.

Her hair...

His eyes rose to hers again.

“My hair?”

“Yeah. Your hair.”

“You’re staring at me,” Ann said.

He shrugged. A slight smile curved his lip. “You came out and stared at me.”

“I did not.”

“You sure as hell did. But I really came out about your hair. You’re too stubborn to ask for help, and it’s hard to clean it and pump the water at the same time.”

“I managed.”

“Sorry, then. I didn’t mean—” he began.

But then he broke off.

“You are staring at me!” she insisted.

“Right. And you stared at me! We’ve established that we’ve both stared.”

“I didn’t stare that long.”

“You stared first.”

“By accident.”

“Like hell.”

“Well, you’ve stared long enough now.”

“I told you that I didn’t mean...”

His voice trailed away. “Oh, fuck what I meant! You’re damned right. I’ve stared long enough!” he agreed suddenly, vehemently. And he reached for her, drawing her from the shower and into his arms.

H
E DIDN’T SAY A
word to her, just kicked the door into the cabin wide with a foot, and slammed it shut the same way. He walked to the quilt-covered bed and fell upon it with her, kissing her again, mouth devouring hers, tongue thrusting, invading; hungry, evoking all manner of wild gearings within her. His hand was on her cheek, stroking, then her throat. Then moving again, molding over her breast, sliding down the length of her ribs to her hips, moving, more. His hand was cradling her breast again, thumb padding over her nipple, rubbing, eliciting wild, sweet, raw, violent responses within her body.

Oh, God, she felt...

Everything. Everywhere. His passion and urgency swept her into a raw, dizzying desire that broke all the barriers she might have imagined the first time making love with a different man. The length of his body against hers was evocative. Where his body was bare, touching her own nakedness, she felt a burning. Where his robe still hung about him there was intrigue. Where his hands moved...