Just a Kiss Away (21 page)

Picking up one foot, she looked at the bottom and assessed the damage already done by walking through miles of jungle for four days. She doubted the rocks could be much worse, so she climbed up them. It took only a few moments to reach the crest of the wall. She pulled herself up so she was just able to peek over the rim.

Her breath lodged in her throat like a boulder.

“Oh, my,” she whispered.

Sam stood near the north edge of the pool, barely five feet away. His back was partially to her and waist high water lapped at his bare upper body. He was shaving . . . with the machete. He craned his square jaw upward and drew the knife blade across it. Her eyes followed the blade grazing his hair-roughened cheek. A broken piece of mirror sat propped against a rock shelf and he reached out and adjusted it to a better position, turning slightly before once again drawing the machete over his dark beard.

She pushed herself over the rocks a bit farther so she could still see. Then he turned a little and she could just see a bit of his chest and profile. Practically her whole upper torso now leaned over the top of the rocks, but her view was truly fine. His long hair, black as jet, was slicked back from his broad forehead, and water ran from it like small meandering rivers down the dips and ridges of muscle on his back. Turning his chin, he raised his arm to better angle the blade, and the movement made his skin taut. Beneath the solid muscle of his upper chest, she could see the outline of each rib and the almost corrugated tightness of his hard stomach.

Sam Forester was nothing like her brothers.

Her mouth felt dry, so she swallowed and almost coughed, ducking her head back down so she wouldn’t give her position away. Very slowly she peered over the rocks again, unable to stop herself. He reached out to adjust the mirror, and she could see his back sparkle as the sunlight caught some water drops that glistened over his skin. Suddenly she needed to feel that skin. It was the strangest thing. Imagine, wanting to touch someone’s skin. Frowning, she stared at her itchy palm, feeling as if it were holding thirty pieces of silver.

He finished shaving; she continued peeking. He picked up two of the same type of leaves he’d given her and rubbed them against his chest slowly. She wished he would turn some more so she could see his chest better. He turned and faced the pool. Her mouth slackened and she ducked down, still peering over the rock edge. A crop of black curly hair ran up from his waist—or down from his breastbone. She eyed him a moment longer, trying to figure out which, finally deciding that whatever direction the trail of hair ran didn’t matter. It was there, and every time he ran the leaves over it would spring outward.

He locked his arms straight over his head, stretching. He twisted this way and that. The motion showed every bulge of muscle, every rib, every indentation in a body so fine that Lollie forgot to breathe. He presented his back again and the water in the pool lapped gently at his bare waist. He looked at his jaw in the mirror, rubbed his chin, then with a quick male shrug that said “good enough,” he turned and dove under the water.

Quickly Lollie shot up and craned way over the ledge to try to get a good glimpse of him swimming. Her waist was wedged against the rim of rocks, and she stood on tiptoe. His tanned form skimmed just under the surface of the water. He surfaced, then dove again and swam underwater like a trout in the Congaree River—except that a trout didn’t have muscular white buttocks that just broke through the water.

Her mouth dropped and she slapped her hands over her eyes. She could hear him splash through the water. Then there was silence. She waited, wanting to peek but a little afraid to. The wanting superseded the fear, and she slowly spread her fingers.

Once again he stood in waist-high water in front of the piece of mirror on the ledge, his back to her. He leaned over and rubbed a tanned finger over his teeth. Which reminded her why she’d come. She drew her tongue over her teeth, remembering that she’d been planning to ask him for the knife. She looked at him again. Now he held the mirror, obviously trying to get a better angle. As he held it up, his back flexed and all thoughts of talking flew right out of her mind.

“Hey, Lollie. Could you move a little more to the right?”

She froze at the sound of his voice. Focusing on his back, she moved her gaze upward. One black leather eye patch and one amused brown eye stared at her from the mirror. His gaze wasn’t fixed on her face, but lower. She followed his stare, down, where her corset cover gaped open so far that she could see clear to her waist.

With a gasp she clasped her hands to her chest. A big mistake . . .

Her hands had been the only thing that kept her from falling. She fell forward, right over the wall and head first into the water.

She wiggled her arms while turning over so she could try to stand up. Water burned up her nostrils. His arm clamped around her waist and jerked her up. The first thing she heard was deep male laughter.

She coughed and sputtered against his bare chest, and when her hands rested against the skin she’d wanted to touch, her palms felt warm, no more itch.

“Enjoy yourself, did you?” His voice was threaded with humor.

She could feel a hot blush stain her face. “Put me down.”

One brief glance at his face and she read his thoughts. “Not here!” she quickly amended, knowing he was going to drop her back into the deep water.

He grinned down at her, then walked the few steps to her rocks and set her on the top of the rock wall.

Embarrassed, she began to wring out her hair. Then finally, unable to stall any longer, she looked at him, wondering what she could say. There wasn’t anything, no excuse to cover up what they both knew: she’d been watching him, and after making a big to-do about her own privacy. It was one of those moments when she wished the earth could swallow her up and spit her out somewhere, anywhere—else.

He’d waded back across the small pool and lounged against rocks near the mirror, crossing his huge arms, a confident male smile on his face as he let his gaze move to her chest. “Nice. Very, very nice.”

She like to died! She hugged her chest instead.

“Is there something I can do for you, Miss Lah-Roo? Maybe”—he turned and stretched his arms up in an embarrassingly slow manner, as if posing for a sculptor—”this angle?”

“I came to get your knife,” she stated, unable to look him in his amused eye.

“You came to get the knife?”

“Yes.”

“Now, why doesn’t that make sense?” He looked around at the high rocks surrounding the small pool. “Funny, I don’t see any coconut palms. Where do you plan to fling it this time?”

“At your rotten heart, but I doubt the knife could pierce it,” she shot back, knowing she shouldn’t have been ogling him, but with his attitude she’d be crazy to admit it.

“Besides,” she added, “I came to borrow the small knife.” She pointed to where his belt and knives lay next to the rock ledge with the mirror, something else she wanted to borrow, now that she knew he had it. “I’d like the mirror, too, please.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He waded toward the knife belt.

“What do you mean, no, I wouldn’t? I know what I want.”

“You don’t want the mirror,” he said sounding as sure as Moses at the Red Sea. His confidence annoyed her, and she felt as if she were at home being told by five older brothers exactly what she should do, want, and think.

“I am all-fired sick and tired of men telling me what I want.”

He grabbed the small knife and turned, giving her a long and amused one-eyed stare. With a male smirk that should have sent warning bells off in her head, he plucked the mirror off the ledge and waded back toward her, stopping when he was a mere foot away. She kept her eyes on his face.

“Here you are, Miss Lah-Roo. Your wish is my command.” He held out the piece of mirror and the knife, then gave an exaggerated bow.

She glared down at the top of his black head and gathered the knife and mirror tightly to her chest, swinging her legs around to her side of the wall. She stepped down and heard his laughter echo from behind her. It just made her move all that much faster. With her chin pride-high, she stepped off the rocks, careful not to slip and further embarrass herself. She walked with purpose along the sandy edge of the shallow end of the pool, making her way to the waterfall curtained ledge where she could finally pick the jerky out of her teeth in privacy.

He was still watching her. She could feel it. When she reached the ledge she looked back. Sam leaned over the rock wall, elbows resting on its rim. He gave her a grin and a quick salute and then began that infernal counting- one, two, three—which only made her that much madder.

Ignoring him, she set the things down and climbed up on the ledge, grabbing the knife and mirror and gladly disappearing behind the curtain of water.

“Seven!” he shouted out, obviously making sure she heard him over the falling water.

She sat down and propped the mirror at a good angle. “Twelve!”

She looked in the mirror

“Fourteen!”

—and screamed.

His voice pierced the little cave. “Found those spots, huh? Only fifteen seconds. Not bad!”

Sam watched, waiting . . . .

Her head poked out from behind the waterfall. “Oh, my Gawd!” Her hands were plastered to her cheeks—the same cheeks that had been covered with bright red spots for a couple of days. “How long have I had these?”

“A while.” He smiled. “Are you sure you weren’t eating those berries?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did.”

“You did not!”

“I told you not to eat too many of them.”

“But you didn’t say anything about spots.”

“I warned you.”

“Not about the spots!”

He shrugged. “A warning’s a warning. I didn’t feel I had to get into specifics.”

She held the mirror up and winced, poking a few of the welts with her finger. “When will they go away?”

“Don’t ask me. I’ve never known anyone who had them.”

“They
will
go away, won’t they?”

“Probably.”

“What do you mean, probably? Don’t you know?”

He shrugged again.

“You knew enough to tell me not to eat them!”

“I was warned and not stupid enough to test that warning.”

Her head whipped back behind the water and although he couldn’t hear her, he was sure he’d just been dubbed a damn Yankee again.

“Hurry along there, Lollipop. Finish what you’re doing and get dressed. We need to get moving.”

She didn’t answer him.

“Did you hear me?” he shouted.

“I heard you!” she returned equally as loud.

He laughed to himself, wading back over to his things, feeling thoroughly entertained. He got out of the water and put on his pants and shirt. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone quite like Lollie LaRue. Harebrained and a little too innocent, gullible and more stubborn than a team of old livery mules, she was a woman on the run in the jungle, far away from home, and so completely out of her element that even Sam couldn’t have abandoned her if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t. He wanted that ransom and she was still a hostage, but she didn’t know that and probably wouldn’t find out until after her father ransomed her.

Just yesterday he would have said the past few days hadn’t been worth the money, whatever the amount. No man needed a whiny, pigheaded woman when he had miles of jungle, filled with Spanish soldiers and deadly snakes and counterguerrillas, all anxious to kill him. But he was a soldier for hire, had been known to do what he had to do if the price was right. This was no different, since there was money involved here, probably a good amount, too. And he did need some compensation for the past few days.