A Candle in the Dark (25 page)

Pain rushed through him and reflexively, he reached into the pocket of a frock coat he no longer wore, searching blindly for the flask. His hand brushed limply against his chest, and he stared at his empty fingers for a moment, confused, until he remembered that he no longer had a flask, or a bottle, or any kind of liquor at all.

Shaken, he sat down, staring at the saddlebags. No liquor. Hopeless frustration rose in his chest, constricting his breathing. Numbly he reached out and fumbled with the leather straps. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was a bottle inside, hidden away…

He knew there wasn’t, but he couldn’t stop his fingers from grabbing the straps, couldn’t stop them from trembling as he tried to loosen the leather fastenings. Cain clenched his jaw and tried to focus. Sweat broke out on his forehead, trickled from his temples. His fingers blurred before him, nausea roiled in his stomach, and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and resting his head in his hands.

The longing wasn’t any better. In the two days since he’d been lucid, it had gotten worse. The scent of bourbon taunted him in his imagination; he knew its smooth, sweet taste and the burning warmth of it sliding down his throat. He wanted it so badly he could cry—hell, last night he
had
cried—useless, burning tears that dried on his fever-hot skin and made him thirstier than ever.

Cain squeezed his eyes shut, tried to think of something, anything. Ana’s confession, the cool river, the sweet scent of orchids. But all those visions wavered flimsily, too elusive to be distractions, and all he could think about was the splash of bourbon into a glass, the feel of it sliding down his throat, warming his stomach…

If he didn’t have a drink, he would go mad.

Hastily Cain climbed to his feet, choking back the bile rising in his throat, and stumbled toward the mule waiting a short distance away. The animal turned to look at him with liquid brown, unblinking eyes the color of whiskey. Cain swallowed. He needed a distraction. Any distraction. Desperately he looked at the mule, at the bulging saddlebags, and latched on to the first thing that came into his mind.

The saddlebags needed to be put on the mule. Yes, that was it. The saddlebags. Carefully Cain reached for them, nearly losing his balance when he picked them up and slung them over his shoulder. Carefully he walked toward the mule, leaned forward slightly, and tried to throw them onto her.

The mule sidestepped, the bags missed by inches. They clunked to the ground. Cain glared at the animal and grabbed for the bags again. He stepped closer, measuring the distance, his eyes narrowing, focusing. One at a time, step by step—

“Señor.”

He was concentrating so intently on his job, he didn’t really hear the voice at first.

“Señor.”

Someone touched him. Cain twisted around, startled, dropping the bags. They thudded onto his foot, and he crashed backward, into the mule. But this time the animal stood still, and Cain braced his hand on its withers, trembling as he gained purchase, and stared at the man standing in front of him. The man was a native, short and wizened, wearing a gaily embroidered
montuno
that almost completely covered his shortened trousers. The straw hat on his head was bent and stained, and over his back hung a burlap bag that clanked at his every movement.

A familiar clanking, Cain thought. Very familiar. His stomach clenched. “
Sí
?”

“
Aguardiente de venta
?” the man asked, gesturing to his bag. “
Compre usted
?”

Would he like to buy some aguardiente
? The world tilted beneath Cain’s feet, he felt light-headed. This man was an answer to a prayer. Cain resisted the urge to reach out and touch him to see if he was a hallucination.

Careful, he had to be very careful. What if it
was
delirium? Christ, he couldn’t stand it if it was only a dream. Cain licked his lips, raked back his hair. “
Aguardiente
?” he asked slowly. “
Esta de vente
?”

“
Sí, estoy de vente
.” The man looked at Cain as if he were mad. Well, perhaps he was, in a way.

“Then yes, I’d like some—
si, si
.” His hands shook. The old man stepped back, waiting, and Cain bent over, fumbling impatiently with the saddlebags, burrowing for his last gold coins. There were one or two, he knew, surely that was enough.

He nearly shouted with joy when he found one, abandoned at the bottom of the bag. His fingers curled around it and he pulled it out with a flourish. The sunlight sparkled on it. The old man smiled and reached into his bag—

Then Ana laughed. She was far enough away where she couldn’t see a thing, but that clear, cool laugh rang out, spiraling through Cain, landing with a thud against his solar plexus.

The gold coin dropped from his fingers, plopped on the grass, and rolled at his feet. His eyes watered, his throat constricted, and all he could hear were her words from two days ago.
Destroy yourself, then
.

His whole body was so taut he felt he might snap. Before he could stop himself, before he even had time to think about what he was doing, Cain turned to the old man, who watched him in confusion.

“No.” Cain licked his lips and shook his head. “No.
No compro. Nada mas
.”

Ah, hell, what was he doing? What was he doing—

For the life of him, he couldn’t change the words or reach out and motion for the liquor seller to stay. The old man nodded and walked away, and Cain watched the vendor go, unable to believe what he had just done, unable to believe that he was watching his salvation walk away,
listening
to it clank away from him.

He looked over his shoulder at Ana, who motioned impatiently at the muleteer. She hadn’t even noticed. He doubted she had even seen the liquor salesman, much less his sacrifice.
You are a fool, Cain D’Alessandro
. His own condemnation echoed in his head.

It was that laugh, that goddamned laugh. Hell, the woman had the timing of a saint. What had made her decide to laugh right then,
right that second
? If she hadn’t, he would have a bottle in his hand right now.

She would never know how much it cost him to refuse the liquor. And she wouldn’t care. Not really. Even today, every word he’d coaxed out of her had been an effort. He would never get past that wall, he knew it, and yet here he was, trying to impress her. Christ, it was enough to make him want to throw himself over a cliff right now, to end the humiliation before it started.

Cain pushed his hair out of his face, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He wished the damn liquor seller would come back, so he could buy a bottle and forget that he’d ever tried to make a hero of himself. He couldn’t sustain this—didn’t want to. Sooner or later, he would have another drink because he didn’t want to stop. Sooner or later, he would disappoint Ana and Jiméne and get soused again. Sooner or later, he would fail.

Deep inside, he knew he wouldn’t even be able to survive
this
trial. He was fooling no one—least of all himself—by pretending that leaving one bottle behind was even a step toward giving up drinking. He wasn’t strong enough. He would never be strong enough. If there was one thing the last three years of drinking had taught him, it was that he hadn’t the will to resist, or the desire to.

Cain took a deep, steadying breath. He was going to have to do something about this wretched desire for Ana—and soon. Before it completely destroyed him. Before he kept making these insanely impulsive decisions guaranteed to make him look as ridiculous as possible.

But even as he thought it, he found himself watching her laugh at something the muleteer said, watching the simple, sexy way she pushed back loose tendrils of her hair and the way her small breasts jiggled gently when she walked. Cain’s loins tightened, and he closed his eyes, trying to choke back the twin desires for her and whiskey. Damn, it was going to be a long—

“Jiméne!” Her voice rang out, and Cain’s eyes snapped open in time to see Castañeras approach. He was talking with a stranger in low, quick tones that stopped the moment Ana’s voice reverberated into the street. But Cain didn’t miss the frustrated impatience on Jiméne’s face, or the startled realization in his eyes—as if he’d forgotten where he was and whom he was with. Nor did Cain miss Jiméne’s quick calculation, the way he turned to his friend and spoke a few hurried words before he waved to Ana.

The man he was with nodded and hurried away, and Jiméne walked over to Ana and smiled a too-bright smile of greeting. Cain waited as the two of them walked his way.

“We are ready, then?” Jiméne asked when they were close enough. He motioned to his sling with his good hand. “Forgive me for not helping, but—”

Cain crossed his arms over his chest, his own obsessions forgotten in his sudden curiosity. “Who was your friend,
amigo
?”

Jiméne threw him a strange, preoccupied look. “A friend, that is all. Are we ready to go?”

“In just a moment,” Ana answered. She motioned back to the muleteer. “Jose says I should have some trousers. I was just getting ready to go into town—”

“You do not need those.” Jiméne cut her off sharply. He nodded shortly to Cain. “Are you ready,
amigo
? If you are, let us go. Let us not stand around all day.”

He marched off, toward his mule, the tails of his blue coat flapping behind him.

Ana stared after him, a puzzled expression on her face. “What’s wrong with him?”

Cain shrugged, trying to pass Jiméne’s strange behavior off as unimportant, though he was equally disturbed. “Maybe he just had a fight with his friend,” he said. “Who knows? With him, it could be anything.”

She sent him a brief, sideways look. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Everything about him bothers me.” Cain snorted. He glanced at Jiméne, who was already mounted and staring at them impatiently. “But it looks like we’d better do what he says,” he said dryly. “Before he trots off without us.”

They had been traveling for only six hours, but it seemed like years. By the time Jose finally called a halt to camp for the night, Ana’s legs were numb. In fact, her whole body was numb from the waist down, though in a way she was grateful for that. At least she couldn’t feel the wet itch of her filthy, sodden wool skirt. It draped over her thighs and fell from her half-revealed legs to drag in muddy, heavy folds across the mule’s sides.

Once again, as she had several times during this journey, Ana cursed Jiméne for being in such a hurry to go. Jose had been right—she needed trousers. Her stockings were torn and filthy, her boots filled with mud, and the only dress she owned was ruined.

If she hadn’t been so sore from the mule’s uneven, jarring gait, Ana would have jumped from the saddle and confronted Jiméne about his inconsideration. But all she could do was sit there, too tired to get off or do more than stare helplessly in his direction. She could barely see him anyway. The twilight-gloom of the daytime jungle had deepened now with evening. Ana looked up at the woven canopy of tree branches high above her, not for the first time noticing that the sounds—except for insects—had faded. The raucous screams of the parrots and macaws had stopped and the monkeys were quiet. It would only last a short while, she knew. The jungle was in transition. Before long, the far more frightening sounds of night would begin.

She wanted to be asleep when that happened. Actually, she wanted to be asleep now, but she was too wet and uncomfortable and hungry to give in completely to her exhaustion.

Ana closed her eyes. Her arms were sore from holding on to the saddle pommel through the radical descents and rises of the mountainous trail. The narrow, steep passages cut into the soft rock by hundreds of sharp mule hooves were like tunnels—muggy and dark, overhung by thick forest, draped with moss and ferns. There were times when the path had been barely wide enough for the mule, and Ana had been forced to put her feet on the animal’s neck in order to keep her legs from being torn off by the walls of the
callejons
, as Jiméne called them. Mud was everywhere—in the narrow gulleys, in the three-foot-deep hoofprints the mule stepped into with perfect precision, everywhere.

The thought that they would have to do it again tomorrow was exhausting.

“Planning on staying there all night?” D’Alessandro’s voice was low and soft behind her, heavy with weariness. “I doubt the mule would get much rest that way.”

Ana forced herself to look around, to speak even though the sound of his voice brought an uncomfortable lump to her throat. “I don’t think I can move.”

“I know. Neither can I.” In the near darkness, D’Alessandro looked white—a pale face topped with black hair that nearly disappeared in shadow. His fingers clenched the pommel of his high Spanish saddle convulsively. He glanced towards Jiméne and Jose, who were already off their mounts. Jose was quickly unloading saddlebags. A wry, tired smile twisted his lips. “I’m surprised he let us stop.”

Ana nodded. Jiméne had barely spoken two words since they’d left Gorgona that morning. He had ridden ahead, his shoulders stiff beneath the blue superfine coat in spite of the sling, forcing Jose to a faster pace as if something were chasing him. After the first hour, Ana had been too miserable to care, but now she felt a faint trickle of worry. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

“Who knows?” D’Alessandro shrugged. “Probably just a headache. Maybe a little
señorita
turned him down.”

“Do you two plan to sit there all night?” Jiméne snapped, looking over his shoulder.

“It speaks,” D’Alessandro said in a low voice.

Ana chuckled. “Be kind,” she admonished.

D’Alessandro threw her a look. “I am always kind.” He took a deep breath and tried to dismount, but the moment he did, he fell back against the animal, his face whitening, his mouth drawing up in a tight line. “Christ.” He groaned. He shook so badly he could barely hold onto the mule’s neck. “Ah, Christ.”

Guilt raced through her. Ana swallowed, feeling suddenly, overpoweringly concerned. He was so obviously sick—