Tempestuous Eden (11 page)

She could only hope that he understood, and pray that things would be well between them.

It was long past nightfall when the activity in the compound died down. The victim now of high anxiety, Blair sought out Craig with her eyes. Just moments ago she had seen him bundling a young matron and child into a blanket so that they might bed down for the night, but now, suddenly, she couldn’t see him.

He couldn’t be far, she told herself …

Fighting an absurd urge to cry, Blair poured herself a cup of coffee and moved to the cooking fire, where the tired crew was gathering. She stood staring into the fire, mesmerized by the flame, thinking how like fire Craig’s eyes could be and wondering desperately if she hadn’t already ruined things with her reticence and fear.

And then she felt him behind her long before his hands actually came to rest upon her shoulders. “Craig …” She turned, and her eyes, wide and unguarded, told him everything that could be said. He kissed her, oblivious to the others, and his smile carried all the warmth and caring she could have desired. “Bad day,” he said ruefully, “and I’m afraid we’re in for some others. Tired?”

Blair nodded, not caring that she was tired.

“I’ll walk you to your tent,” he murmured, his eyes dazzling and his voice husky as he lowered his head to her ear and added, “We’re being doubled up, you know. Kate’s in with you, Juan’s in with me.”

Blair chuckled at his mournful tone. “Are you advising me against any nocturnal excursions?”

“I certainly am,” he said sternly. “I’m fond of old Juan, but if he caught a glimpse of that delightful body I consider my own—hope that isn’t too macho a statement—I think I’d make those dark Latin eyes of his a bit darker!”

Blair chuckled softly as they stopped before her tent. She stood on tiptoe and wound her arms around his neck, delighting in his height and breadth as she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him, slowly, savoringly. Feeling the heat grow from her action, she stepped back. “Coming from you,” she said huskily, “I don’t mind macho statements.”

He grinned with the arch of a brow. “Good.” He took the initiative then and pulled her back into his arms. “This will only be a few days,” he said, his voice a deep, thrilling velvet. “Just a few days …”

But the few days stretched to a week—one that Blair often considered pure torture.
It’s because I know what I’m missing!
Blair thought wryly as she stayed awake nights staring at the canvas even though she was bone weary. And yet, even the torture was nice. She felt vaguely as if she were being courted—a bit backward, maybe, but courted nevertheless. Craig walked her to her tent every night and each night they shared a kiss. Each night they both knew they wanted so much more.

Blair wasn’t enduring half the torture that plagued Craig. Slipping out of the tent for his midnight communications now that Juan was in the tent was tricky, and yet not impossible. That was actually the least of his problems. He was behaving madly, carrying on with Blair when he, unlike she, was fully aware that time was of the essence, and that in a matter of days, everything could crash in on their heads.

Yet he couldn’t stay away from her. Couldn’t help but pray that they would have just one more chance together before …

Before she hated him. Not knowing what was going on and not able to tell her anything, even about himself, she was surely going to think the worst. He was asking for trouble. He would have been a hell of a lot better off if this had been a simple little baby-sitting stunt for a wayward socialite.

None of it mattered. He was committed to the end. If there was an explosion … then be it. He couldn’t willfully change things. So this was being in love, he thought miserably. What a hell of a damned time for it to happen to me ….

The tight schedule of the new-refugee confusion was just beginning to wind down when the second new recruit the doctor had been promised appeared.

He came in a jeep, like Craig, carrying gifts from the States. His name was Brad Shearer. He was a dark-haired Texan, a smiling country boy close in age to Blair. Instantly likeable. An enthusiastic Dr. Hardy turned him over to Blair to introduce to the others.

Blair found Kate and Craig together at the cook pot. “Kate, Craig—Brad Shearer.”.

“Hey, west Texas!” Kate smiled warmly. “Glad to meet you.” Blair suppressed a smile at the unabashed sincerity of Kate’s comment. But then her smile began to fade with a trace of unease, the first she had felt in quite some time. She was almost sure she had detected a flicker of recognition in the man’s eyes when she introduced him to Craig.

The second was over too quickly. “Nice to have you, Brad,” Craig said easily, extending his hand to the other man, his nonchalant grin in place.

And then Brad was shaking his hand, his greeting cordial, but his eyes turning back to Kate.

The two women had some time at the stream that evening. The majority of the influx of refugees had moved back to the north with supplies, their cuts and bruises patched. Things were once again normal.

“What do you think of him?” Kate asked enthusiastically.

“Who, Brad?”

“Who else?” Kate demanded with exasperation.

“He seems nice,” Blair responded warily. “Kate—did you notice anything funny today?”

“I haven’t noticed anything
funny
in a long time,” Kate replied dryly. “What do you mean?”

“I could have sworn Brad recognized Craig and then both of them acted as if they had never met.”

“Oh, Blair,” Kate wailed. “I thought you’d gotten over all of this!” Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I think you read too much.”

“Kate!” Blair chastised with a chuckle.

“Really, some women have no appreciation for the finer things in life,” she sighed. “Unlike myself of course,” she hastily added.

Blair went pensively silent. She did have Craig Taylor and suddenly she wanted him desperately. Her suspicions began to melt from her mind as a warmth flooded through her. Tonight things would be back to normal. And she could be with him again. Tonight she wouldn’t leave; she would find out just how content she could be waking beside the man she could now admit she loved.

She was so engrossed in anticipation that she gave no thought to the eerie feeling of being watched that so often plagued her.

Craig had only brief moments away from prying ears to spend with Brad Shearer. Brad was from a different office, but still, his appearance, like his own, could only mean trouble.

“What’s going on,” he demanded, a broad smile on his face as he and Brad apparently exchanged a casual conversation over the bottles of Budweiser Brad had brought.

“I don’t know, Taylor, I don’t know a damned thing. I didn’t know I’d find you here. All I’m supposed to do is keep an eye on these people.” Brad’s face was plastered with the same negligent grin. Just two old back-home boys shooting the breeze. His voice lowered gravely, but his face remained passive. “That Morgan girl is Teile’s widow and Huntington’s daughter, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And she’s your assignment? Damn, man, I don’t envy you that one.” He sighed softly. “Hope I didn’t give you away; it would help a lot if they let us in on what we were doing.”

“Yeah,” Craig agreed again, feeling his stomach tense. At the beginning he had been sure the old man was being overly protective. Now he felt a strange fear creeping along his spine. He was sure beyond a certainty that things were going badly, that he would indeed be racing the woman out of the jungle.

The woman who was now coming toward him from her tent with Kate, smiling, laughing with that beautiful melodious sound that never failed to thrill him.

The woman with whom he had made the severe and deadly mistake of falling in love.

“The Rams looked good this year,” he said automatically to Brad as the women approached. “But I’d put my money on either the Jets or the Forty-niners.”

“I don’t know,” Brad argued cordially. “The Jets have a quarterback out with a busted kneecap.”

Craig moved to pull Blair against his chest and slip his arms around her waist, hugging her back to his body. “What do you think, Blair?” he asked, nuzzling the top of her head and inhaling the sweet fragrance of her freshly washed hair.

Blair smiled, content in his casual hold that left no doubt as to the relationship forming between them. “Steelers,” she volunteered off-handedly, accepting a sip of Craig’s beer and returning the can. “It’s getting late,” she remarked then softly. “Can I interest you all in the dinner Brad brought? Steaks! Dolly is already by the fire getting things started.”

The crew ate together, and Blair felt the anticipation and lulling sensation she had begun to experience earlier enveloping her. She was happy to be with Craig, enjoying the pleasant meal.

But she was anxious for time to pass.

And when it did, and when the crew dispersed, she took the initiative, following Craig to his tent with no pretense of going to her own.

With the tent flap down, he pulled her instantly into his arms. Their embrace was long and sweet, and then Blair extracted herself from it. “Juan is gone?” she questioned with an arched brow.

“Ummm …” Craig returned, standing back slightly with his arms crossed.

“Well, then …” Blair shrugged with a secret smile, loving his return—a compressed smile in the shadows of darkness. He watched her with that smile, a brow raised.

Nonchalantly she began to unbutton her shirt. His gaze darkened and narrowed, passion bringing golden brown highlights to his encompassing gaze. Hesitant suddenly, Blair felt herself begin to quiver again. But he had demanded that there be no holding back between them. Her movements still shaky, she kept going, slipping from shirt and jeans, then from bra and panties.

Again Craig felt humbled by her. She was so very beautiful, so exquisite, coming to him freely, shedding her clothing with that strange innocence that was also intoxicatingly lithe and sensual. The pale glow of the fire outside the tent caressed her shape with warm amber shadows, displaying firm breasts and haunting angles with an uncanny loveliness.

She stood before him, long lashes barely shimmering over eyes that were a combination of shyness and wanton boldness. He met that gaze, smiling encouragement as he cast his own clothing aside, unaware of the perfection of his own muscled physique in the ethereal glow. “Come to me, Blair,” he murmured, and she did so.

He took her to the cot with reverence. His needs were strong. He had to have her instantly, but still he made love with tenderness, treating her with a tender fragility that belied the raging torrent of passion within him. They had some time tonight, he thought. He could make love to her over and over. He held her tightly, wincing. They had time, but not forever. A communication was due, and all hell could break loose.

But still, he did have hours. Hours to exhaust her, hours to leave her heavy with sleep.

Afterward, just when he was sure she had fallen asleep, she stirred in his arms. “Craig?”

“Ummm?”

“Do you remember the day you got here?”

“Explicitly,” he breathed with many meanings.

“Do you remember you told me you made a discovery at the stream?” she queried softly.

“Yes?”

“Well, what was it?”

He laughed. “I wasn’t just giving you a line that day, beauty. You still have to see it for yourself. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll go for a swim before dinner.”

“Why tomorrow, Craig?” she asked with a devilish glint in her eyes. “Why not now?”

“Now?” he queried. His mind ticked away while he hoped he had kept the dismay out of his voice. “It’s late. We do need to sleep sometime.”

“Oh, Craig,” Blair murmured, shifting over his chest. “At the moment I’m anything but sleepy!”

There was time, he judged. As long as he left her sleeping … and the stream just might have that effect. Seventy-five minutes, he thought, glancing covertly at the luminous dial of his watch. He had a lot of “exhausting” to do in that time.

He came to his feet lithely, the lion, the decision made. He laughed and pulled a startled Blair up with him, the impenetrable keen shade of fathomless gold in his eyes. “The stream it shall be.”

Blair nuzzled against his chest. “Thank you, Craig,” she murmured, “for humoring me.”

He grinned with a devilish recklessness. “To humor you, gorgeous, is sheer ecstasy for me.” He released himself from her entanglement briefly to rummage through his footlocker for towels, and then caught her hand. “Let’s go.”

“Like this?” Blair demanded incredulously.

He twisted his lips in a teasing smile. “Do you suggest we go swimming clothed?” Duty or no, he didn’t think he could bear to allow her to cover the beautiful sheen of her miraculously curved body at the moment.

“Well, no, but—” Blair’s eyes sparkled as she left her word hanging.

“I’m sure the complex is sound asleep,” Craig assured her. “But just in case…” He made an elaborate gesture of carefully wrapping a towel around her, taking time to tuck the flap in between her breasts. He wrapped his own towel over his lower torso. “Decent enough?”

“Not decent at all!” Blair chuckled. “But just fine.”

Craig collected their scattered clothing and held out his hand. “We can come back dressed, just in case it’s close to daylight.”

“Deal,” Blair murmured, momentarily overcome by shyness. She was a little shocked that this was herself, not actually seducing a man, but coming to him to be seduced, and then asking that their nights go on and on as if she were a honeymooner. But she didn’t feel a speck of shame; she felt wonderful. Until tonight she had only been able to tell herself she wasn’t an emotional cripple. Now she knew it for fact. She had learned from Craig that she was warm, sensual, and very much a woman. The new power was an intoxication in her mind that swept away caution and logic.

Craig paused long enough to grab a huge flashlight, and they moved into the night, fingers entwined as they ran across the compound with lightfooted stealth, holding laughter until they reached the trail to the stream. It was not a silent night—the sounds of the crickets and other creatures of the dark rang in a cheerful harmony that filled the air with vibrant life.