Kerry didn’t know whether his resentment was directed toward her, toward his unloving father, toward his lack of formal education, or a combination of all of them. But she felt it safer not to pursue it.

  It was he who finally broke the silence. “What about you? What kind of childhood did you have?”

  “Charmed.” Kerry smiled with remembrances of golden times. Before they were tarnished by scandal. Before the nightmare. Before the bubble burst. “Like you, both my parents are dead now, but I had them when I was growing up.”

  “You went to parochial school, of course.”

  “Yes,” she answered truthfully.

  “Let me guess. You wore navy blue pinafores over stiff white blouses. And pigtails so tight they made your eyes water. White stockings and black patent shoes. Your face and hands were never dirty.”

  She laughed softly. “You’re remarkably accurate.”

  “And you were taught social graces along with Latin and Humanities.”

  She nodded, thinking back on all the formal salons she had sat in with her parents, listening to boring conversations, which to a teenager with a passion for the Rolling Stones, had had no relevance. She had never been at a loss as to which fork to use and had always politely thanked the host and hostess for the evening’s entertainment. Linc had had a latch-key, and she had had personalized stationery.

  “Yes,” she replied, “my father’s work involved considerable travel. You and I might have been in some of the same places at the same time.”

  He uttered another of those humorless laughs. “Honey, you don’t even know about some of the places I’ve been in.”

  “I’m not that innocent.”

  “Compared to you, Sister Kerry, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm led a wild life.”

  Though she couldn’t see his face, she could imagine the sneer on his lips. Knowing now how different his background was from hers, she could understand why he might ridicule her previously sheltered life and lack of worldly experience.

  She lapsed into silence. Apparently he was of the same mind. He adjusted himself more comfortably against her. Miraculously they fell asleep.

  Kerry came awake suddenly. Every muscle in her body was tense and quivering. “What is it?”

  “Shh.” Linc laid his fingers against her lips. “It’s only rain.”

  The huge drops fell heavily on the plants surrounding them. They landed in hard splats. It sounded as though their shelter were being pelleted with BBs. “Oh, Lord,” Kerry whimpered and ducked her head so low that her chin almost touched her chest. “I hate this.”

  Even though the broad leaves of the vine covering them provided some protection from the torrent, rainwater still trickled through the foliage and dripped chillingly onto her exposed skin. Her muscles were cramped. She longed to stretch her limbs in all directions in order to ease their aching and to restore circulation.

  “I can’t stay in here. I’ve got to get out.”

  “No,” he said sharply.

  “Just for a minute. To stretch.”

  “And get soaked in the process. Then when you crawl back in, you’ll be even more uncomfortable. No, Kerry.”

  “We could sneak back into the house,” she said in a hopeful rush.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No one will be watching. We could go through the kitchen and join the children in the basement. They must be terrified.”

  “They’re probably asleep. Besides, they have Joe.”

  “No one would see us.”

  “It’s too risky. The soldiers are bound to have posted a watch.”

  “I don’t want to stay here any longer!”

  “And I don’t want to be shot! I don’t think you want to be gang raped either.” She sucked in her breath quickly. “Now hush about it. We’re not leaving until I say so.”

  The racket around them was deafening. It was raining buckets. Kerry felt the jaws of claustrophobia closing around her.

  “How much longer?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dawn?”

  “I hope.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Around four I think.”

  “I can’t stand it any longer, Linc.” She hated the tremor in her voice, but she couldn’t control it. “Truly, I can’t.”

  “You’ve got to.”

  “I can’t. Please let me stand up.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “I said no, Kerry.”

  “Just for a minute. I’ve got—”

  “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “Turn around. Face me. Switching positions will help.”

  Her muscles were screaming for her to move. She turned onto her back, then did another quarter turn to bring herself face-to-face with Linc.

  He laid his arm across her waist and sandwiched her thighs between his. She placed her hands on his chest and buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder. Tucking her head beneath his chin, he held her close. She basked in the warm security he provided until the noisily splattering rain abated.

  Kerry never knew how long they stayed like that. It might have been hours or merely minutes before she gradually became aware that the rainfall had ceased and that the silence was as loud as the downpour had been. She stirred and would have put space between Linc and her, had there been any space available.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I panicked. Claustrophobia, I guess.”

  “You woke up frightened. You’re cold, hungry, uncomfortable. So am I. But for the time being, this is the best we can do.”

  His voice sounded funny. She didn’t have to ask why. Her own was none too steady. The feel of his breath against her face, the way his fingers were moving comfortingly through her hair, the heat rising from the places where skin contacted skin were the reasons behind her tremulousness.

  “Why did you do it, Kerry?”

  “What?”

  “Commit yourself to a vocation so unsuited to you.”

  Oh, that. She felt wretched about her lie. With the exception of their bitter quarrels, he had treated her honorably since he had mistaken her for a nun. If he had continued to be aggressive and abusive, she would have taken a blood oath that her life was committed to a religious order. But his nobility demanded the truth. At least a partial truth.

  Yet, she stalled. “Why do you say it doesn’t suit me?”

  Linc’s head was whirling with discrepancies. Kerry felt more womanly than any woman he’d ever held in his arms. He couldn’t reconcile this young, beautiful, desirable woman with his concept of a nun. The sweet pressure of her breasts against his chest, the way her mouth had yielded to his those few times he had kissed her, just didn’t jibe with black habits and cloistered abbeys. He was streetwise enough to know that some first impressions were sound. And he’d bet his life on this one.

  In answer to her question he said, “You don’t look like any nun I ever saw.”

  “Nuns look like everybody else.”

  “Do they all wear bikini panties?”

  She blushed hotly. “I...I happen to like frilly underwear. That’s not a sin. Feminine things appeal to me because I’m a woman.”

  That he didn’t need to be reminded of. She was a woman, all right. He could feel her womanliness with every masculine cell in his body.

  “You just don’t have a holy aspect.” She stiffened with the affront, but he held her tighter. “I don’t mean that you’re unholy, it’s just that...hell...”

  He paused for a moment, searching for words. “I mean, didn’t you ever think about having kids? You’re great with these orphans. Didn’t you ever want to have kids of your own?”

  “Yes,” she answered honestly.

  “And a, uh, you know, a man?”

  “I’ve thought about that, yes,” she said softly. She wondered if he could feel her heart pounding against his chest. Her answer was truthful. But she’d never thought about having a man as powerfully as she was thinking about it now.

  She was recalling the masterful way his tongue had parted her lips and moved inside her mouth, and the manner in which his hands had been both caressing and commanding. She had felt the grinding thrust of his hips against hers. Total possession by this man must be an ultimate sexual experience for a woman.

  “You’ve thought about making love with a man?”

  She nodded, rubbing her nose in his crisp chest hair.

  “You’ve wondered what it feels like?”

  She held her lips tightly together to stopper the longing groan that pressed against them from the inside. “Of course.”

  He sifted his hands through her hair. “If he knows what he’s doing, a man can give you pleasure. Pleasure never dreamed of.”

  She was liquifying, melting against him. She wondered how he could continue to hold her when surely she must be dissolving in his arms.

  “Aren’t you curious to know how it feels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then,” he asked hoarsely, “won’t you feel cheated if you don’t ever experience that?”

  She held her breath for what seemed like an interminable length of time before blurting out, “I haven’t taken any final vows yet.”

  He flinched reflexively. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said. What does that mean?” His breath was hot, as hot as the widespread hand branding the skin on her back.

  She was sorely tempted to tell him the truth then and there. Seconds after the words were out of her mouth, he would be making love to her. Of that she had no doubt. Swollen and hard, his manhood pressed against her belly. She was dewy and achy with desire for him. What transporting ecstasy it would be to—

  But no. Her attention must be focused solely on the nine orphans. Their lives were in her hands. If they were to survive, they needed all the odds in their favor. Neither she nor Linc could be distracted for a single instant.

  If they became lovers, that would not only be a distraction, but a complication. When this was all over, when they were safe in the United States, their relationship would be a heartrending dilemma to her and an albatross to him.

  Kerry couldn’t give herself to any man lightly, yet that’s the way this man of vast experience would take her. She had no doubt that when Linc had referred to a man who knew how to give a woman pleasure he was speaking of himself. But that’s all it would be to him. Pleasure. Mutual but temporary. Involvement with a man like Linc O’Neal would only open up oceans of regret for her.

  She chose her answering words carefully. “It means that I’m still considering what to do with the rest of my life.” It wasn’t a lie. It was a solid truth. She hadn’t planned her future beyond getting the nine children into the United States.

  She felt his heavy sigh; it seeped out of him gradually. And with it, his tension. His compliance with her silently expressed wishes made her feel even worse about her deception.

  She remained lying in his arms, but there was a tangible difference in the way he held her. Soon, grayish light began filtering through the branches of the vine. Straining their ears, they could hear sounds of morning activity coming from the soldiers’ camp. The smell of coffee and food made them both delirious with hunger. Several times they heard men moving through the jungle, but none came as close as the soldier had the night before. Finally, they picked up the welcome sound of truck engines being pumped to life.

  Linc waited about fifteen minutes before he lifted the vine and crawled out. “You stay here.”

  Kerry obeyed him. She was actually grateful for the moments of privacy. She pulled on her own shirt, which was still damp, and ran her fingers through her hair. It was a mass of tangles. She was still working her fingers through the knotted strands when the curtain of leaves was lifted.

  “It’s all right,” Linc told her. “They’re gone.”

  Chapter 6

  Kerry sank down onto the bank of the river. She was thoroughly dispirited. Her shoulders sagged with defeat. The toddler, Lisa, seemed to have gained fifty pounds overnight. Kerry couldn’t hold her for another minute without dropping her. She set the child on the ground beside her.

  “Now what?”

  She got no answer. Several moments ticked by. Even the children were still, as though realizing that they faced a serious problem that might not have a solution. Shading her eyes with her hand, Kerry glanced up at the man standing beside her.

  Hands on hips, one knee bent, brows lowered, eyes glowering, mouth frowning, it wasn’t difficult to assess Linc’s mood. Kerry watched his lips form a crude expletive that he didn’t dare speak aloud in front of the children, even though they didn’t understand English.

  She diplomatically let a few more moments go by before she tried again. “Linc?” His head snapped around and he glared down at her. “How the hell should I know? I’m a photographer, not an engineer.”

  Linc immediately regretted lashing out at her. It wasn’t Kerry’s fault that the heavy rains the night before had caused local flooding and that the wooden bridge he had planned to use to get across the river had been washed out.

  It wasn’t even her fault that he was in such a foul mood. She was the reason for it, but she wasn’t to blame. Ever since he had helped her crawl out of the cover where they had passed the night, he’d been ready to take somebody’s head off at the slightest provocation.

  “You’d better put these on.” He angrily tossed her her clothes after he’d retrieved them from where he’d hidden them the night before.

  She hadn’t taken issue with his brusqueness, but had quickly stepped into her khaki trousers. Unable to tear his eyes away from her long, lovely, fantasy-inspiring legs, Linc had watched every supple movement. His loins had ached with the recollection of her thighs being entwined with his.

  Had it really happened? Had he only dreamed that her body perfectly complemented his? Had she curled up against him, actually seeking contact, or had he just wished it so hard that it had seemed real?

  Maybe so, because all morning they had fenced with each other. They hardly behaved like two people who had slept together like lovers. They hadn’t even been friendly. She’d been cautious and wary of him; he’d been truculent and quarrelsome.

  When they returned to the house and found the children in the kitchen instead of in the cellar, Linc had yelled at Joe. “I thought I told you to stay down there until I came to get you.”

  “I heard the soldiers leave,” the boy shot back. “I knew it was safe.”

  “You don’t know sh—”

  “Linc!”

  “When I tell you to do something I expect you—”

  “Linc!” Kerry had shouted again. “Stop yelling at Joe. All the children are safe, but you’re frightening them.”

  Linc had cursed beneath his breath as he headed for the front of the house. “Get them ready. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  Luckily the truck was where he had left it the evening before, concealed by jungle vines. He slashed at them viciously, working out some, but only some, of his frustration.

  “The children are hungry,” Kerry told him from behind the screened door when he bellowed from the front lawn for them to load up.

  Stormily he had followed her back into the kitchen, where the orphans were gratefully eating stale bread and bananas. Kerry had helped them wash their faces and hands, which had become grimy in the cellar. None of them looked at Linc directly, sensing his mood, but he felt eight pairs of eyes frequently glancing in his direction. The ninth pair, belonging to Joe, openly defied him. Animosity simmered between the man and the adolescent boy, who hadn’t taken kindly to the blistering lecture.

  Little Lisa had squirmed free of Kerry’s arms and crossed the kitchen floor bearing a dry crust of bread. Her eyes were sympathetic and imploring as she gazed up at Linc and tugged on the knee of his fatigue pants to get his attention. He looked down at her. She offered him the crust of bread wordlessly. But her eyes, as dark and rich as chocolate syrup, spoke volumes.

  Linc crouched down, took the piece of bread from her, and ate it. “Muchas gracias,” he said and cuffed her on the chin. Lisa flashed him a dazzling smile before shyly scampering back to Kerry.

  It was a while before he had cleared his throat enough to say gruffly, “Let’s go.”

  When all the children had been placed in the truck, he drew Kerry aside. “Call off your watchdog.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Joe. Make it clear to him that I didn’t compromise you last night. I’m afraid to turn my back on him for fear he’ll slide a knife between my ribs.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Tell him!”

  “All right!”

  Those had been the last words they had exchanged until now, when, with her eyes shaded from the glaring sun, she had looked up at him and spoken his name.

  Apparently her nerves were just as frayed as his. She lashed back. “That’s what I’m paying you for, Mr. O’Neal. To come up with ideas. To improvise.”

  “Well, maybe you should have checked out my credentials more carefully before offering me the goddamn job.”

  Kerry had no argument for that, so she clamped her mouth shut and returned her stare to the rushing water.

  Why did she always make him look like a snarling beast in front of the kids? They were watching him as though he were a cross between Jack the Ripper and Moses, afraid of him, but looking to him for leadership.

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “Give me a minute, okay?” he said, raking his fingers through his sweat-damp hair.

  The bridge was clearly indicated on the map, but apparently hadn’t been that substantial. The rising current, due to last night’s torrential rains, had been sufficient to tear it from its moorings.

  The truck had rolled to a stop where the road ended in the swirling, murky water. The children had piled out and now stood on the bank, looking to him for answers he didn’t have. Joe seemed to derive a perverse satisfaction from their predicament; his lip was curled with smug derision. And quite clearly, Kerry was leaving the solution up to him. As she had pointed out, that’s what she was paying him for. He would have to earn every red cent of that fifty grand.

 

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