Into the Flames (Perilous Connections: Book Two) (5 page)

He
laughs
,
a deep husky sound.
I
have to look
away to hid
e
the effect the sound
has
on me.

“That
does seem
as good a place as any for now.”

“And what about later?
”
I say between clenched teeth,
my humor gone and
the fear returning
.
“
You
have no right
t
o
take us with you and to put our lives in danger like this.”

He stares
at me. E
ven though dawn is gone and daylight has finally emerged,
I can’
t read a single thou
ght in those silver eyes, his entire face is closed and I can’t peek inside
. “You’re right. But that doesn’t change a thing.”

I
stut
ter and
my
m
outh hangs open as I
st
are
at him as he increases his pace and leaves me behind.
No doubt deliberately.

W
e have finally reached
the
main road which lies a quarter mile from my
home. I throw a quick glance behind me and there is no Emmanuel, heaving a sigh of relief I watch as s
everal headlig
hts rush
recklessly
by us
.
Passenger buses.
They run at all times
and
at all speeds. Speed limits belonged to the
civilized
section
s
of the world, not in Antigua, where all drivers determined how fast they
can
go.

One minute later w
e cram i
nto the
first
bus
that stops
.
Curious
eyes dissect our little party.
I find a seat right behind
Nate
and Elaine
. H
e is still cradling a sleeping Aubrey and
as
we speed off
I give all my concentration over to
staying on
my seat
which has
no seat bel
t
. I sternly ignore the tanned, muscled arm directly in front of me which circles Aubrey’s sleeping form.

Nate

I try to block out
the man sitting next to me, a feat in itself as the
seating capacity of the
bus
,
barely four feet across doesn’t allow much wiggle room for
one of my size. C
ouple
this
with the fact that I am cramme
d into a seat with three
other
adults and I am in misery
.

To take my mind off this
I study Aubrey’s face. His soft brown cheek
s
still
have
the sheen of a baby
’s, delicate and round and with a pang I am
reminded of Caitlin and Stephanie,
my two
teenaged sisters back home in Loveland Colorado.

After I came
mom had gone ten years without another child, so they’d adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia. Six months later she’d found out that she was pregnant with Caitlin.
So the two were pract
ically twins, devilish, smart-mouthed
ones at that.
An image of my bed filled wi
th dirt-
covered earthworm
s
, courtesy of Stephanie
,
causes
an unbearable ache to surface inside me. My hand tightens about
Aubrey, who
bless
the little man, can sleep through anything apparently.

I
miss those girls
something awful
. T
hey would be eighteen and sixteen now
and I have been gone for their last five birthdays.
Five long years
.
Long
enough for them to
believe whatever my father told them about the black sheep of the family.

My lips thin
with regret.
Most of which was true. The old man would have a heart attack if he found out that I’d long since topped tho
se b
oyish escapades. I pray to God
that he never does. Emmanuel doing me in would be far bette
r than facing my father’s wrath or punches for that matter.

I
try to shift and give up
immediately as I sense
a
baleful glare
burning
hole
s
in m
y arm. I turn slowly and
my
eyes
lock with brown angry ones belonging to
a dreadlocked dude
, sitting one person over from me and
who looks like he wants to punch me in the face. I flash a grin at him
, but he just scowls and makes a hissing sound through his teeth. He gives me a warning glance before turning away.
I shrug, so both he and Daphne hated my smile. But
I could take him easily
if he decided to go beyond stares. Abruptly the thought fills me with shame. Those
day
s of
getting into nonsensical fights are long gone for me.
I fight now
only to stay alive. I grimace as I
rub
my
knuckles and feel
th
e lessening sting
. Emmanuel was the first person I’d hit in over a year.

Just how had Em
manuel traced me
so
soon
from the hotel
? I was s
ure that I had managed to eva
de him because he’d arrived at Sunset Cove
on the same day that I’d left
.
Had it been
Stacy
who’d pointed him in my general direction
?

But she didn’t know where I’d go
ne, having left several days
before
I snuck out of Sunset Cove.

But if Emmanuel had found her and gotten even that information from her, I have
no doubt that she
’d
paid dearly for
knowledge she’d carried
… the same thing would’ve happened to Daphne. I c
lose my eyes as I picture for the hundredth time
her naked silhouette
cringing
against the wind
ow,
Emmanuel’s arm raised to strike her.

If he’d
been able to
hurt her I do
n’t know what I would’ve done to him. Would I have morphed
back
into that conscienceless animal I’d become these last years when I’d had to take on the traits of the men I did business with
to survive
? I shove the thought aside, unable to look back in
to
that mirror.

I focus on the landscape rolling by outside the bus. R
olling pastures dotted with cows, small
houses, some beautiful, some broken relics, all
fly by as we
head toward the town’s center.

The pier
is only
a short walk away. I’ve
been there before on one of those silly tourist tours
. I
turn
without warning and I
catch Daphne watching me,
she quickly looks away but not before I see the anger and desi
re in her eyes
.

I swallow a groan.
I want her something awful
b
ut that is
impossible now.

For both of us.

Daphne
will come
to realize that the man
she’
d been forced to
marry was once a former
drug smuggling
colleague
of the same man who’d held
a knife to her face.

On the way to the pier less than half an hour later w
e manage to hit a flock of
mostly
young, energetic tourists who are also headed to the ferry. I scan the crowd swiftly, keeping my face expressionless. No sign of Emmanuel.

It won’t take him long to come around and promptly come after us.
Broken wrist
be
damned.
I can only hope that he goes to th
e airport first.

A young and
very attractive
blond in tiny shorts catches my eye. S
he smiles impishly at me.

I
pretend to be just as carefree
and I smile wickedly back, let
ting
my eyes lighten as they tend to do whenever I‘
m turned on
or just concocting some wa
y to screw somebody over
.

She tosses thick golden hair
over her shoulders,
and swings a well-
rounded hip, my eyes fall to those
long
honey
-
toned legs.

Forget cancer. The warm kiss of the Caribbean sun was worth it to most tourists who purposefully left their sunscreen back in their room.

But I’
m not here to get laid. At least not right now. And the only w
oman I want beneath me c
urrently loathes me and is purposefu
lly walking two steps behind to show just how much.

Daphne or
Daffee
.
I still haven’t made up my mind if I want to continue baiting her by forcing the hideous nickname on her.

I’
m a stubborn bastard and the harder
she fights
me, the more I want to tame her.

I
stop and
wait for them to catch up. Aubrey had awoken the moment the bus stopped and Daphne had stalked forth to snatch his hand away from mine, giving
me
the dirtiest look imaginable. But though her amber eyes had been on fire with the need to do me some type of serious
bodily
harm, the boiling heat in them had only served to stiffen that conscienceless part of my anatomy.

I reach
out and
snatch Daphne’s
hand before she can shove her way past me, she gasps
and several pair
s
of
ragingly curious eyes swi
ng in our direction.

“Let me go,” she hisses.

I smiled slowly, savoring the way the rise of her chest
which causes those sweet
firm breast
s
to push against the worn material of her crisp smelling t-
shirt. I
let my gaze linger on her chest
for a second too long.

“Admit it,” I
say
half tauntingly, “you’d wanted to sleep with me last night. It wasn’t because of the money.”

“You … you” she snaps
her teeth
together,
her face h
as gone all shades of caramel.
Then she calms down and fixes me with an eerie stare that sends chills down my spine.
“
Part of the reason
I slept with you
was
because I knew it was what you ex
pected.
”

For a moment I can’t speak, even as I search her
eyes
, desperately trying to find
the lie, to expose her fo
r the lying little witch she is but the more I look all I
see
is myself, the ugliness that has
seeped into my character.

Turning
away
abruptly
I let out a slow breath, apart from my father, Daphne has
been the only other person to see me as I truly am.
A selfish bastard w
illing to take whatever I want
at any cost
.

As we arrive at the pier, the heavy smell of too much salt water
pushed into a tiny
inlet
that is filled
with algae and
fish floods into my stomac
h. I grimace as the smell sours in my stomach and I’
m t
hankful that I haven’t had breakfast.