Tempestuous Eden (8 page)

“French,” he announced aloud. He was versed in a smattering of the language, but it wasn’t one he would call fluent.

However, knowing that she quizzed him with a pegging instinct, he couldn’t calmly announce that his fifth language was Russian. There hadn’t been any Russian kids in southern California.

“Oh?”

She wanted an explanation for the French. Now he was sorry that he had helped Tom Hardy with the letter, but at the time the man had been so perplexed, wondering if they were about to be saddled with a German correspondent, that Craig had seen no problem with helping the doctor out of his difficulty. Guilt over his role with an operation as responsible as the Hunger Crew often nagged Craig; he tried to justify his existence within the compound whenever possible.

“I traveled a lot,” Craig said simply. “You know that. I just liked French, so I took it as a language elective in school. Hopping in and out of France with a pack on my back, it was easy to improve on the books.”

It was amazing, Blair thought, that a man with such hard, severe features could have a smile that dazzled and held one spellbound. As had been happening all the time they had spent together, her reservations began to dissipate beneath the warm glow of that smile. He laughed now, moving closer to her, his face just inches from her own, his breath caressing her skin. “I guess I’m just an aging hippie. I wanted to spend my life wandering the globe, and I had the money to do it. So I did.”

“That’s nice,” Blair murmured. The reasons for her third degree were quickly slipping from her mind, as if she held a rope that spun crazily and ripped from her fingers without leverage to stop. When he moved toward her like that, she didn’t worry about a future, she didn’t worry about the past of the man. She was struck by immediacy, wanting only to feel the thrill of his full lips against hers again, feeling a warm desire burn from deep within her and spread, a desire to complete what he had curtailed a week ago, an impulse to forget all else and throw herself at him, demanding to know why he held back, demanding that he assuage her fears that he didn’t want her as she wanted him.

He was caught just as she was. The spinner of spells, spellbound. Alone, they were still within vision of the rest of the crew, but it seemed of minor importance. Her lips were slightly parted so near his, moist, inviting. He knew their feel if he were to move. He knew the sweetness that her mouth would offer. A whisper away … just a whisper …

He had the power, Blair thought vaguely, the power to make her breath quicken from a mile, to race her blood, to shatter her entire frame with trembling. Indeed, still not touching, he had the power to move the elements. The fire danced, the stars seemed to tremble, even the earth began to move.

“Damn!”

Suddenly Craig’s arms were around her, but it wasn’t with tenderness or desire gone crazy. The earth was moving, and Craig Taylor was not the perpetrator of the action.

“Quake!”

She heard the word shouted from the fire. Then she was rolling in Craig’s arms, and the earth beneath them was trembling violently. They rolled and rolled, even as her mind spun, and then she knew why. The tree they sat beneath, their tree, was careening downward, crashing to the ground not a foot away.

Voices were screaming in the night. Pandemonium set in. Explosive fear pounded into Blair’s mind. There had been tremors before, many since she had first set foot in Central America, but nothing like this. The rumble went on and on, the sound of the brush falling throughout the jungle was that of a cacophony of drums.

Beneath her she could feel the parched earth cracking.

But above her she could feel Craig. His body covered hers, his broad hands laced over her head, sheltering her. There was tension in him. Along with the vibrations all around her she could feel his heart galloping along with her own, strangely giving a sense of security against all odds.

Tents jiggled and collapsed, and the rumble went on. In the heavens the stars jerked dizzily, like images displayed out of sync on a movie screen. The rumble rose to a roar.

And then ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

“Are you all right?”

Craig’s face, strained, harsh in the darkness, hovered over hers, the pressure of his cradling fingers on her head intense.

“Fine …” She gasped, and then he was on his feet, drawing her up, gripping her hand and racing to the compound center.

There he released her hand. The authoritative power in him was unleashed. He was in control, his voice, calm, firm, was commanding the crew into action with swift assurance while also checking for injuries.

Thankfully, bruises, scratches, and fear were the only physical results among the assembly. It hadn’t been a quake after all, Craig announced, but a very healthy tremor.

And they weren’t a group of easily panicked people. The quick note of control in Craig’s voice had them instantly in reciprocated calm. They were moving with brisk efficiency to pick up the damage.

But it was still Craig giving the orders.

“Juan, Kate, get into the village with the first-aid kits. Dolly, get set for any severely wounded. Blair—” His eyes lit upon her.

“I’ll go with Juan and Kate,” she volunteered in interruption. “I know the children the best—”

“No!” His command, even for the situation, was startling. The yellow of his eyes had never seemed more brilliant, more like a dangerous blaze that could sweep out of control. Then the fire was hidden so quickly that it might not have been. His voice softened. “You need to be here, Blair, with Tom in the med tent. If any of the kids come in hurt …”

Blair wasn’t given a chance to agree to or to refute his command. His voice went on for a second with further, all-encompassing instructions, and then, like a football huddle, they broke, all running off in separate directions to carry out their assignments.

Into a night that seemed to go on forever.

First on order for those remaining in the compound was the reconstruction of the tents. Craig, as usual, had matters well in hand. He asked for assistance to reorganize the med tent first so that Doc and Blair could get going with preparations. The rest of the reconstruction he could handle himself. Working alongside him briskly as the med tent was restored was the last Blair was to see of him at close quarters for quite some time.

The night and the days that followed were insane. The devastating action of the earth had been only a tremor, but in the village the destruction had been great. Flimsy walls had fallen; many had been left homeless.

But thankfully, no casualties had occurred. Blair treated a multitude of cuts and bruises, wincing each time an injury was so severe that stitches had to be sewn into young flesh, but the worst injury that had befallen anyone was a set of broken toes on a young lad, snapped by a falling shelf. Dr. Hardy was able to patch him up fine. The tremor had been far more violent farther north, near the base of a long-dormant volcano. Any extra help received in the country would not come their way; it too would go to the north.

It took them two and a half days of almost round-the-clock work to get back on even footing. And then, when things were caught up, they were disoriented.

It was always hard to understand the resiliency of the people. One day their homes had been in shambles—the earth itself had heaped ravishment upon what the war had left them. But they merely picked up the pieces as they had so many times before. They accepted help, they said thank you with sincere appreciation, and then they forgot and went on.

It was nightfall of their third day of whirlwind confusion when Juan returned from the village with news that the last hut had been rebuilt.

And Blair’s last little patient had been released that afternoon. New supplies had arrived; all were stocked away.

It was incredible to suddenly have nothing to do. Nothing but go back to their usual schedule that was once so grueling, now so easy. Three hours a day for leisure now seemed like a fabulous vacation.

“It’s as if it never was,” Blair told Tom with disbelief, shoving back a lock of damp hair as they finished up in the med tent at almost five o’clock. She glanced past the raised tent flap, knowing she would see Craig at work lifting, hauling, or building in the compound. He was always close. She was never without the warm feeling of his presence, his energy, close to her. Yet he might as well have been miles away for all the chance they had to talk.

She caught sight of him carrying food cartons, still tirelessly busy. Frowning, she turned back to Doc. “I don’t know what to do with myself,” she told him lamely.

“Take a bath,” he advised with a chuckle as he surveyed her wilted form. “And hurry! I want to get down there myself.”

Kate, Blair discovered, had already been to the stream and was happily reclined before the fire with a book, cigarette, and cup of coffee. Loathe to disturb her, Blair hurried along on her own, enjoying the water, but still bathing quickly. With the emergency over, she was finding time to think, and thinking reminded her of the day she had been so sure she had been watched.

Funny though, all through the days of recovery from the tremor she had had that same uncanny feeling. But, then, Doc had told her that Craig watched her. Silly, he had been too busy to watch her. All his strength and wit had been working at top capacity, focused on the task of rebuilding and restoring order.

And yet he had always been close. He had appeared almost as if by magic each time something was needed.

But it would also be silly for Craig to watch her by the stream. Why watch covertly what could be yours if you said the word?

But then again, she wondered dryly, why did he never say the word? Or had he been about to? She didn’t know. At least natural catastrophe had kept her from her reeling heart and mind for the last few days. But now they were back to square one. And she was finding herself overwhelmed by a sudden shyness. The man, the enigma were overpowering. She was at a loss.

Brooding, she headed back only to have her mental dilemma halted immediately by the appearance of the very enigma she pondered.

Craig was waiting for her on the path.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” she returned with a guilty smile. Did he know that she was plagued by thoughts of him constantly? That the last days, watching his caring, watching his competence had increased the feeling she hedged in her heart, drawn her even more irrevocably into his web?

“We finally have a night,” he told her.

“Yes.”

“I’d like to share it.”

“So would I,” she committed softly. He took her hand, and they returned to the compound together.

Craig was calling the tune, Blair realized, but she was glad of it. Their relationship had taken a turn again. She was still inexplicably wary, and he still sensed it.

But the time of hands off, of building friendship had come to an end. They were back to the simple but stark attraction of that very first evening.

He was touching her again. They brought their meals to the stream that night, and after they ate, they sat, Blair cradled into the tender strength of his shoulder. They spoke little; they were content to be in each other’s company.

Yet he still held his distance. He did not demand the kiss she was dying to give, and she was more keenly aware of the powerful longing he leashed within his taut frame.

He returned her to her tent untouched, but the fire that blazed in his eyes was a pained one, filled with emotions she couldn’t begin to understand. There was regret in eyes she saw as a clear, warm ache of longing. A need that nearly took over for a moment as he caressed the back of her neck with both hands and stared into a sea of emerald green. His lips brushed hers like a feather, and then he was gone, walking past the fire, toward his own tent.

“Craig …” The call voiced in her own mind didn’t quite become sound. She kept watching him move away, misery welling in her heart.

And then she knew that he still sensed her terrible fear. The fear she never acknowledged in rational thought, the fear of pain that had been left her in legacy of Ray Teile’s death.

There might be more to it than that—she didn’t know. But suddenly she did know that she couldn’t spend another night without him.

She couldn’t spend any more time in long, deliberating thought. It simply didn’t matter.

Filled with pain and need and a longing for the joy that only he could open to her, she felt her feet begin to move across the compound. Feelings moved her now, slowly at first, then with mindless determination, along the inevitable path she had been destined to follow since that very first day.

She needed Craig Taylor.

And she was very frightened that she loved him.

None of it mattered now—nothing.

Except that she be with him.

C
RAIG FELT AS IF
he had been tied into slow, tortuous knots, but because he was agitated, he made himself behave
normally
—whatever that was. He turned the flame of his kerosene burner very low and began to shed his clothing meticulously, placing his boots right to left beneath the cot on the hard earth floor, rolling his socks, neatly folding his shirt, jeans, and briefs.

Everything was in easy reach, but nothing was indispensable. In his line you never knew when you were leaving.

Naked, he stretched his length onto the cot and punched his pillow into a headrest. He crooked an elbow against the canvas wall and placed one hand behind his head; with the other he lit a cigarette from the packing case beside the cot that served as a makeshift dresser.

Inhaling slowly, he stared unseeing up at the angled, army surplus green that was his roof. This whole thing could be classified only as stupid, he thought, bitterness mingled with regret. He had expected a princess, a spoiled little girl.

He had found a woman. Both feet firmly on the ground, intelligent, possessed of humor, character, wit, and a soundly reasoning mind. For the life of him, he couldn’t begin to understand why the old man refused to discuss the situation with her.
Classified,
he reminded himself wryly.