In Too Deep (6 page)

Rod, on the other hand, looked disgustingly unfazed by the temperature, the humidity or the terrain. Cara wanted to punch him.

She tried concentrating on the water instead. The surface of the river was still and smooth and gray in the morning light. It captured the reflection of the surrounding trees as effectively as a mirror. Shrouded by a pale, silvery mist that was just beginning to lift, the setting was hauntingly beautiful and mysterious, unlike anyplace she'd ever seen before.

Then, when she estimated they had gone no more than a couple of miles farther, they suddenly came upon an area of destruction. The green undergrowth gave way to barren land darkened by fire. The towering mahogany trees had been felled, and only charred stumps remained. She felt as though she'd stumbled into the aftermath of a particularly violent war. A chill swept through her.

“What happened?” she asked, a note of horror in her voice.

“Civilization,” Rod said cryptically. “Everyone wants a piece of it. There's only half the virgin rain forest now that there was in 1940.”

“I don't understand.”

“The trees were very valuable. Oil was discovered. The military claims it needs the area to protect the border with Guatemala. Now the national power company comes along and wants to flood huge regions for a whole series of dams.”

“But the land, it looks as though it's been through a forest fire.”

“That's one way of describing it. Actually, there's a method of fanning used by those who immigrated to this part of Mexico at the urging of the government. It's called slash and burn. They strip a section by burning it off, then use it until the soil is robbed of any nutrients. When they can't grow the vegetables, cotton or tobacco on it any longer, they abandon it and move on. I'm surprised you didn't notice it on the drive from San Cristobal to Palenque.”

“I did. I wondered about it then, but I'd assumed there had been some sort of forest fire there. I didn't expect to find the same thing here. The mention of a tropical rain forest conjures up images of unspoiled land with all sorts of lush foliage, not this.”

“These people have to eat. They're not concerned about preserving the beauty of their surroundings. They didn't go to agricultural colleges to learn high-tech farming methods. They use the ways of their forefathers. There are those trying to teach them better ways, but it takes time to get the message across.”

Cara fell silent. Rod slowed his pace and studied her closely. She caught the expression of concern in his eyes. It surprised her.

“You look as though the heat is getting to you,” he said. “How about a break?”

Cara looked around her at the devastation and shivered. She shook her head. “Not here.”

He nodded in understanding, and for just an instant the barriers between them seemed to fall away. She detected a sensitivity that lured her as effectively as his physical magnetism.

“We'll go a little farther, then,” he said.

As they walked on, Cara wished that Rod would go on talking. The uneasy silence that had sprung up between them at the camp had made the whole morning uncomfortable, but almost every attempt she had made at conversation had been ignored or had been met with curt responses.

“Why did you become an engineer?” she asked when she could bear the silence no longer.

His jaw tightened and for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. Finally, he said, “I like the challenge. What about you?”

“I wanted to follow in Scottie's footsteps.”

“That's not the best reason I've ever heard for choosing a career.”

“No,” she admitted. “It's not. But it's worked out. I'm actually good at it.”

Rod chuckled. “You sound surprised.”

“I guess I am. When I was a little girl, everything Scottie did seemed so glamorous and mysterious, so much larger than life and beyond my reach. He was always off in some exotic location. I never understood exactly what he did there, but he obviously loved it a lot.” A familiar wistful feeling came over her, and before she realized what she was saying, she confessed, “I guess I thought if I could do the same thing, maybe he would love me.”

If she'd expected sympathy or compassion, she'd chosen the wrong man to confide in.

“Your father always loved you,” Rod said, that odd angry note back in his voice. “My God, he gave up everything for you.”

Cara flinched inwardly, but she didn't pretend to misunderstand. “You mean when my mother died.”

“Yes.”

Taking a deep breath, she voiced a fear she'd often had. “You sound as though you think it was my fault that Scottie came home.”

“Wasn't it?”

Hearing the accusation voiced aloud stirred her defenses. “For heaven's sake, I was fifteen years old. My mother was dead. What should he have done?”

“You could have gone away to school. There were relatives who could have taken you in.”

Cara was stunned by the coldness in his voice, the cruel indifference to her feelings. He almost seemed to hate her, and she couldn't imagine why.

“Well?” he persisted. “Weren't there other choices?”

“Okay, I admit it. I suppose I knew I was nothing but a burden to him. There was an aunt who was willing to take me, and there was money enough for boarding school. But he was my father. Don't you think he belonged with me?” she said. Her tone was angry, but the fury couldn't hide a plea for understanding.

All the old feelings of hurt and rejection tore through her. Furiously, she blinked back tears.

Rod appeared unaffected by her vulnerability. “Why? The relationship certainly hadn't seemed to mean much to you up until then.”

“How can you say that? I idolized Scottie.”

He gave her a look of total disbelief. “Oh, give me a break. What had you or your mother, for that matter, ever done for Scottie? Did you ever really try to understand him? You never once came to the places he worked. He was a lonely man. He missed his family.”

Cara stared at Rod, amazed by the statement. What he said was impossible. Surely he couldn't be referring to the man who'd glided in and out her life with nary a backward glance.

“You must be mistaken,” she replied stiffly. “He chose to stay away.”

“Maybe so. Maybe he felt he was the one who wasn't wanted. All I know for certain is that he missed you. Frankly, it didn't make a damn bit of sense to me. I'd have written the two of you off years before, but not Scottie. He'd read those skimpy letters you wrote with tears in his eyes. He'd read them over and over. The latest one was always tucked in his pocket and the latest picture of you was always up on the bulletin board in his office. No matter where we were, it was the first thing to go up.”

His gaze pierced her. “Why the hell didn't you ever come?”

She trembled with outrage at that accusing look. How dare he question her relationship with Scottie? She'd been a child, subject to the whims of two adults, each of whom had apparently been determined to have their own way.

“Dammit, I was a little girl. Was I supposed to hop on a plane and take off to be with a man I didn't even know wanted me? It was
his
choice that we stay behind and make a home for him. Not that he was ever there,” she said bitterly. “I can't tell you the birthdays he missed or how many Christmas mornings all I had to remind me of my father was a gift under the tree.” She gave him a penetrating look. “Why does this matter so much to you? Scottie was just your boss.”

“No,” he said softly. “He was the father I never had. Oh, I know he wasn't really old enough to be my father, but he was far, far wiser than the green kid I was. My own father could never spare me the time of day. Scottie talked to me by the hour. We sat around bars together, just passing the time. Hell, we even went fishing together. He was gentle and kind and patient. I hated sitting by and watching what the two of you were doing to him. He didn't deserve it. He had a right to your loyalty and love.”

There was so much anguish in his voice that Cara couldn't doubt his sincerity. That pain was hauntingly familiar. It was a reflection of her own. How odd that a man who'd never seemed much of a father to her until she was fifteen had provided exactly that sort of loving guidance for Rod. It did nothing to ease the instinctive jealousy she'd felt for Rod even before they met.

Now, though, a million unanswered questions raged through her mind. What Rod was telling her cast her entire childhood—and her mother's air of martyrdom—in an entirely new light. She and Scottie had made a life for themselves in the dozen years since he'd come home. At first, struggling with her mother's death, she'd been so grateful for his presence she'd avoided asking him why he hadn't come years earlier. Lately it hadn't seemed to matter. She was only just beginning to realize that it had mattered desperately all along, that she hadn't broached the subject because she feared the answers.

“I did love Scottie. As for what you're telling me now, I don't know whose fault it was that things were the way they were between my parents,” she said softly, filled with sorrow and an odd sense of relief. With the relief came joy. Rod had given her that. He had given her back an image of her father she'd wanted to believe in. Her father had cared after all. Even then, when he'd been so far away.

“Maybe it was my mother's choice to stay behind,” she said finally. “She never said, and neither has Scottie. There was that much loyalty, at least. There were no accusations, no attempts to make me choose sides.”

“It must have been a hell of a marriage,” Rod said sarcastically.

“It was no marriage at all,” Cara admitted. “Not by my standards, either. God knows, I never want one like that. If I commit to someone for the rest of my life then that's exactly what it's going to mean. I want a house with a fireplace, picnics at the beach, Sunday barbecues in the backyard and traditions for every holiday.”

The expression in Rod's eyes softened unexpectedly. For just an instant she sensed that he might reach out to her. Instead, he asked, “Do you have the man in mind for this idyllic arrangement?”

“Not yet,” she conceded with a rueful smile, grateful that the emotional conversation was veering off in a new direction. “Good men are hard to find.”

That wasn't exactly true, she thought. She had met honest, kind men. She had dated men with ambition and wit and intelligence. She had even considered marriage to a man who could have given her everything she'd just described to Rod. But not a one of them had stirred her passions, not a one of them had had Scottie's strength or exuberance. While she didn't consider herself a romantic, she wanted it all. She wasn't willing to settle for a lukewarm marriage that would weather time but stir her blood no more than a pleasant evening stroll.

“What about you?” she asked Rod. “Where's the woman in your life?”

“Just one? You do me an injustice.”

The deliberately mocking edge was back in his voice, but this time Cara determined it wasn't going to silence her questions as she was sure he intended.

“Don't you want to settle down someday?”

“I tried it once. It's not for me.”

“You were married,” she said, surprised. He had the air of a man who'd resist the bonds of marriage to death. There was an independent, untamable quality about him. It hinted of strong passion, but not love. “When?”

“A long time ago, before I came to work for your father.”

“What happened?”

“I guess I set out to do what you're doing. I wanted a marriage that would be everything my parents' wasn't. The woman I chose was the exact opposite of my mother. She was sweet and gentle, a real homebody. She did everything she could to create the perfect home. I had the perfect nine-to-five job. It was a disaster. Worse, it was all my fault. I was restless. I didn't like sitting around in the evenings playing bridge or dressing up in a tuxedo to go to the opera. I should have realized that before the wedding. Instead I put her through hell before we had sense enough to call it quits.”

Cara was somehow dismayed by his rejection of exactly the kind of life she wanted. It only confirmed his unsuitability. Still, she had to admit to being intrigued, not only by the discovery that Rod had been married, but by the admission that the divorce was his failing. She sensed, though, that now was not the time to pursue it.

“What about since then?”

“I've learned my lesson. I'm not the marrying kind.”

“Then the stories are true?” She didn't like the way her heart was thudding dully as she awaited his response.

“Which stories are those?”

“That the world is strewn with women whose hearts you've broken.”

“That must be someone else,” he told her with a wry expression. “I always leave 'em laughing.”

* * *

It was a long time before either of them spoke again. Rod appeared lost in thought. Cara was filled with an odd sense of having had her world shaken. Rod's revelations about Scottie made her cherish her father anew, and suddenly she wanted desperately to hear his voice. Instead, it was Rod who spoke, insisting that they take a break.

Cara sank down gratefully on a tree stump at the edge of the river. She drank deeply from the canteen of water she'd filled from the bottles at their camp. Rod unwrapped a chocolate bar and held it out.

“Have a piece.”

She shook her head.

“Don't be foolish. This is no time to worry about calories. You'll walk them off.”

“I'm not being foolish. I happen to hate chocolate.” She pulled a package of raisins and nuts from her pack. “Will this do?”

“Whatever the lady likes.”

While Cara ate a handful of the trail mix, Rod prowled restlessly along the river's edge. His expression was intent, and something about it made her uneasy.