The Marriage Trap Page 6

  Not surprising, she thought, considering that he probably hadn’t got any sleep the night before. He had obviously stayed up waiting for her amorous visitor to make his move. She felt a momentary twinge of something like guilt.

  ‘You can sort out some grub.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the food pack. ‘I’m going down to the river to have a bath.’

  He plucked a clean shirt and a towel out of his pack, started down the path to the river, then stopped and came back. ‘Here.’ He rummaged beneath the packs and came up with the rifle, holding it out to her.

  Courtney blanched. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Protection,’ he said succinctly.

  ‘You think those miners we heard about might…’ Her voice trailed off. There were some things she didn’t want to talk about. Not after last night.

  ‘I damned well don’t know what to think, sweetheart. I just know I’d rather you were prepared.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You can shoot, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But I’d rather not…’

  ‘I’d rather not, too. But you don’t always get the choice, do you?’ he asked her.

  Numbly she shook her head.

  ‘Then just use it if you have to.’ And with those ominous words, he turned his back on her and disappeared into the jungle.

  Courtney didn’t bother to watch him go. She leaned the rifle carefully against a tree trunk, made sure the safety-catch was on, and set about getting dinner. It wasn’t going to be gourmet fare. But the selection would be better than they had expected by tonight because they had saved food yesterday when they had eaten with the Indians.

  Remembering the experience, she felt nervous again. The soft scufflings in the trees above and the occasional rustlings on the jungle floor, which usually were no more than background noise, unnerved her now. She glanced over her shoulder warily, but saw nothing.

  She put a small can of stew on the fire to heat, then added some plantains wrapped in leaves and embers. She opened a tin of sardines and hacked off several slices of the bread that Consuelo had made for them to take along. Then she got out the grapes that she had picked earlier while Aidan was swimming.

  The tree frogs went suddenly silent.

  She dropped the grapes on the ground, whirling around to see if she was in danger. Nothing. Except a bunch of muddy grapes.

  Damn. She wiped at them with a handkerchief, but to no avail. She would just have to wash them off. Readjusting the can on the fire so that it wouldn’t burn while she was gone, she started down the trail towards the river, then remembered the gun. If Aidan saw her without it, he would have a fit.

  Let him, she thought. Then with a shiver she remembered the feel of that man’s unwanted touch the night before. Maybe she ought to take it. Just in case. She went back and got it, then headed back towards the river.

  The jungle was still silent. Waiting. It felt eerie, quiet. It was a relief to hear the sounds of Aidan splashing just out of sight. It would be better, too, if she kept him out of sight. He wouldn’t want her interrupting his bath. Not, she thought wryly, unless she planned to take one with him. And since she had no intention of doing that, she cut off the path and moved downstream a little distance so that she wouldn’t bother him.

  She pretended great absorption in washing off the grapes. But she couldn’t stop her eyes drifting towards where she heard him splashing. And she couldn’t help edging closer and finally staring through the foliage once she had.

  The river curved slightly, so she was out of sight behind thick foliage that went clear to the water’s edge. But Aidan was bathing on the narrow sandbar where they had tied up the boat and he wasn’t hard to see beneath the overhanging branches.

  The sight of him took her breath away. Tall, tanned all over and gorgeous, he stood in water to mid-thigh while he soaped his chest and arms and belly.

  Courtney swallowed, blinked, told herself to look away, but couldn’t. She was transfixed, enchanted by the pure masculine beauty of him. He finished soaping himself, and she saw him sink slowly down into the water, submerging completely. Ripples fanned out from where he had vanished. She waited, watching, leaning forward, worried when he didn’t reappear at once. Her fingers tightened on the gun. Where was he?

  Just then he broke the surface far closer to her than he had been, and she sucked in her breath. He stood and shook the water out of his hair and eyes, then began moving towards the bank. Courtney suddenly remembered that she had better get back to the camp before he did. One last look, she promised, and parted the leaves that obscured her view.

  He was no more than thirty feet from her now, towelling his hair, water streaming off the rest of his body, making glistening tracks through the matted hair on his chest. Courtney’s eyes followed the tracks, the sight of him making her ache, heating her blood.

  A sudden scurrying and chattering of monkeys made her glance up, and then her blood ran cold.

  There in the tree just above Aidan hunched a jaguar, waiting. Ready to spring. It inched out on the limb, looking down, eyes fixed on the man below.

  Courtney’s breath caught in her throat. God, no! She felt a scream rising in her throat and forced it down again. To shout would be the worst thing she could do. But then, how to warn him?

  Her fingers gripped the cold steel of the gun. Warning wasn’t possible. Even if he knew, what could he do? Instead she dropped the grapes gently to the ground and released the safety-catch on the rifle. Then she lifted it, resting the butt of the rifle against her shoulder and aiming the barrel at the animal in the tree. She hadn’t lied when she had told Aidan she could shoot. But she hadn’t told him it had been years since she had done it, either. Perhaps it would come back to her, like riding a bicycle or knitting. She could only hope.

  Gritting her teeth and bracing her feet, she pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Aidan never knew what hit him.

  At first Courtney thought she had. The sharp report of the rifle made him jerk upwards, his arms flung out. Then the jaguar crashed from the tree, knocking him senseless to the ground.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Courtney scrambled through the bushes, then slowed her pace and approached man and animal cautiously. She kept the rifle pointed down, though she remained ready to use it again if the jaguar moved. It didn’t.

  Neither did Aidan for several moments. Then at last she heard him groan and saw him twitch in the dirt, muttering and trying to heave the great weight of the jaguar off him. Relief flooded through her, and she checked the rifle, making sure the safety-catch was on it. Then, dropping it to the ground, she ran and knelt beside him.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Wh—’ Still stunned, Aidan rolled over, trying to focus on her, wiping the mud from his mouth.

  She bent over him, using all her strength to haul the jaguar off. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Aidan blinked—first at her, then at the body of the jaguar lying beside him dead. He shook his head slowly, as if he needed to clear it, needed to make sense of what had just happened, not as if he meant he wasn’t hurt. He was filthy again, she could see that. Dirty from being thrown to the mud by the impact. And scowling.

  ‘What the hell did you do?’ he demanded roughly, levering himself up on his elbows.

  ‘I… shot it.’

  ‘You shot it?’

  ‘It… it was… going to…’ she swallowed, feeling suddenly dizzy ‘…get you.’

  Aidan looked from her to the dead jaguar. The full import of the situation seemed gradually to be coming into focus. He wiped a hand across his face, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again the jaguar still lay there motionless and the white-faced woman staring down at him still looked as if she might faint at any moment. And when he thought about what had almost happened, he thought he might too. It terrified him, and he took refuge in anger.

  ‘What the hell were you doing there, anyway?’

  Courtney’s gaze, which had drifted to the jaguar
to avoid Aidan’s nakedness, jerked back to meet the blazing fire of his eyes. ‘Washing grapes.’

  ‘Grapes! What the——’

  ‘They… they fell in the mud. I brought them down to wash them off. I didn’t want to come right where you were swimming. So I came downstream a little.’

  ‘And you just happened to be watching me anyway.’

  Her pale face got a bit of colour at the accuracy of that, but she shook her head fiercely. ‘You just… just popped up right on the other side of these bushes when I was… going back. I… I heard a noise and… I looked up and… there it was.’

  She didn’t need to say any more. They both knew what would have happened if she hadn’t used the gun.

  Their eyes met. His were deep green and serious. All the scorn and mockery she was used to seeing in them was absent now.

  ‘Thanks,’ he muttered finally, his voice shaking. He struggled to his feet and reached for the towel, aware now of his nakedness. ‘I need to wash off.’

  ‘Yes.’ But this time she didn’t have any qualms about hanging around. She sat on the edge of a fallen tree, cradling the gun across her knees, and waited for him. If he wished she would leave, he didn’t say so. He submerged completely again, though not for as long a time as he had earlier. Then he began to swim back upstream towards his clothes.

  Courtney stood up, fetched the grapes and, shouldering the gun, followed him. He was stepping into his trousers when she got there. She politely averted her eyes while he zipped and snapped, though there was nothing now she hadn’t seen before and they both knew it. Then, as she started back towards the camp, he said, ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it? Are you OK?’

  He still looked pale and a little shaky. That made two of them, Courtney thought. But he had more right to than she did. He was, after all, the one who had almost died.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he assured her. ‘But I’m not letting that cat go to waste. I can’t leave it here. Every hungry carnivore in the jungle will be on top of us if I do. Come on.’ And he went back downstream the way they came, intent on skinning and cutting up the jaguar where it lay. It was heavy. Over two hundred pounds, Courtney guessed. There was no way he could bring it along to their camp.

  He stood looking at it a moment as if contemplating once more the near disaster he had just survived. His eyes went from the one gunshot wound in its head to the woman with the rifle who stood watching him. ‘I guess you can shoot,’ he said wryly. ‘Those miners were lucky they didn’t come around.’

  ‘I was lucky I hit it.’ She didn’t feel heroic, just shaky now that it was over.

  Aidan shook his head. ‘I was lucky you hit it,’ he said grimly and, getting out his knife, he set to work.

  Courtney lingered, watching, turning her head at the sight of the blood. But then she thought how much worse it would have been if it had been Aidan’s blood she was looking at. ‘I’ll help,’ she said.

  He gave her a long look, and she had no idea what he was thinking. But he got out a smaller knife and told her what to do. She took it, swallowed hard, and set to work.

  They brought enough meat back to camp to use that day and the day after. Beyond that it would spoil, Aidan said. He pressed her into helping him drag it to the boat.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Take it over to the other side of the river. The smell of blood attracts other animals. I think we’ve had enough for one night.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Courtney said with heartfelt enthusiasm as she helped him haul the carcass on board. Then she waited, glancing nervously at the treetops while Aidan rowed across the river. She saw nothing, but she was still relieved when he returned and they were on their way to camp again.

  The can of stew had burned, but Aidan took two of the jaguar steaks and prepared to cook them.

  ‘It’s a good thing you killed it,’ he tried joking when he looked at the incinerated can, ‘or we’d have gone hungry.’

  ‘If that… that cat hadn’t been there,’ Courtney said sharply, still unable to see any humour in such a narrow escape, ‘I’d have got back before it burned.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice was soft, and she almost regretted her sharp tone. No one knew better than Aidan how close he had come to a grisly death. He did not need her seriousness to remind him.

  ‘Here,’ she said, reaching for the meat he was about to put on the fire. ‘I’ll do it. You rest.’

  He looked as if he might protest. But she didn’t give him the chance, taking the meat and putting it on two skewers, then balancing it over the fire with the aid of two supporting forked sticks. She set out the bread and the plantains that were almost too well cooked and finally she opened a tin of sardines. It might not be gourmet fare, but it would do. She turned to say so to Aidan and found him leaning back in his hammock, his eyes closed, his face still tense.

  For the first time she thought Aidan Sawyer looked as if he might have a smidgen of vulnerability. He had a right to it, she figured. He had had a long, hard day.

  He didn’t move as she dished up the plantains, some of the sardines, the grapes, and took the cooked jaguar meat off the fire. She was almost loath to wake him. But it had been hours since they had eaten, and it seemed a waste to let the food go uneaten.

  ‘How’s this?’ she asked him at last, holding out a plate.

  He opened his eyes slowly, looking disorientated for a moment. Then coming to, he nodded. ‘Thanks.’ He took the plate from her and, grimacing from some undoubtedly bruised muscles, sat up and began to eat.

  They ate in silence, both of them ravenous, the near brush with death having given them an appetite, an appreciation for being alive. But there was more to it than that. There was a sense of harmony now. Although Courtney was conscious of his eyes on her all the time— a not unusual occurrence—for the first time she didn’t sense the overt hostility that had existed between them on every other occasion.

  Perhaps, she thought, if she saved his life every day they might become friends.

  Could she be friends with Aidan Sawyer? Did she even want to be? For all its appeal, it was a dangerous idea.

  And it got even more dangerous when the coffee had boiled, and she poured them each a cup. When she added a spoonful of sugar and handed it to him, he smiled at her.

  Without warning, her heart began to sing.

  No, she thought frantically, don’t. But her heart ignored her, too enchanted by the pair of tired, bloodshot green eyes that smiled at her and the lopsided grin in the whiskery face to pay attention to her mind’s warning. She was too glad he was alive not to rejoice. That’s all it is, she tried to tell herself. Just that. Nothing more.

  Aidan took a sip of the coffee, then sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Heaven,’ he breathed.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Courtney said abruptly. ‘You came far too close to heaven once today.’

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, the green eyes serious. ‘You think I’d get there, do you?’

  He probably wouldn’t, she realised. And she would do well to remember that. But it was difficult when he looked gentle and tired—when he had, all kidding aside, almost been eaten.

  ‘If you behave yourself,’ she retorted, but there was no animosity in it, and she avoided his eyes.

  There was a long silence between them. The fire hissed and sputtered. Overhead the jungle creatures went about their business unconcerned. Courtney cradled her coffee mug in her hands and listened to the soft, reassuring rasp of Aidan’s breathing.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said at last.

  And for the rest of the night he did. He didn’t go off to sleep right after they ate as she expected he would. On the contrary, he seemed to want company, to need to talk. And, obviously unwilling to talk about his near brush with death and not wanting to bring up her near brush with disaster that had begun the day, he steered the conversation on to non-controversial topics, mentioning Consuelo, Aurelio, and talking a bit about life in Boca Negra in general. He was entertaini
ng, witty, and Courtney enjoyed hearing his stories.

  She wondered what had brought him to the jungle in the first place, but she didn’t like to ask. Not when for the first time things were going smoothly between them. Still, she did comment on some of the things he told her. And when he finished another story about how he and Joao had three times rebuilt a shack that kept getting ripped apart by rainstorms, she sensed once more the tenacity and commitment that was so at odds with his refusal to accept responsibility for her in the beginning.

  ‘You like it in Boca Negra,’ she commented as she repacked the cooking-gear and folded down the cover on the pack. ‘And its people.’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ He rolled into his hammock and adjusted the mosquito netting, then shut his eyes. ‘Not quite your speed, I imagine.’ Behind the net she couldn’t distinguish his expression.

  Courtney shrugged. ‘A far cry from Los Angeles, that’s for sure. But I was raised here, after all, and I loved growing up here.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Why’d you leave then, if you liked it so much?’

  She stopped for a minute, trying to figure out how to put an answer into words. ‘To be my own person, I guess,’ she said, unsure how to explain her upbringing. ‘I’ll be right back.’ She got to her feet and retreated behind some bushes to wash her face and change her shirt. Yesterday she had gone down to the river to wash at the end of the day. But not tonight. The memory of that jaguar crouched there above Aidan’s head could still make her shudder. Hurriedly she buttoned her shirt.

  When she came back, she expected he would be asleep. He had looked exhausted. He had had a terrifying experience. Now he needed some time to recover. She crawled into her own hammock and lay suspended, rocking gently.

  ‘So why are you back?’ Aidan’s question broke into the jungle sounds. ‘Besides what you’ve already told me?’