Betrayed (21 page)

Mollified, Vicki eyed Joe curiously as the valley dropped behind a ridge. “You sound like a tree hugger after all.”

A flowered sleeve brushed Vicki’s arm as Joe shrugged. “Hey, you can’t be around them—or this—for long without facts and figures rubbing off. Besides, I hate waste. There’s a lot of good country being ruined here. Remember me—surf, sand, and the great outdoors? You can’t enjoy nature on a bunch of polluted beaches or mountain trails.”

He looked over at Vicki. “And you? Holly never made a convert out of you? No, wait. You’re firmly on the people-hugger side. So tell me—how did the two of you end up so different? You’d never guess the two of you grew up in the same house.”

“Holly never told you about us?”

“Sure. She’s hardly the reserved type, as you know. She mentioned that you two were adopted, grew up out in the country. But I’m interested in your point of view.” He appeared relaxed, his hand so light on the throttle that the plane seemed to be flying itself. His eyes met her scrutiny with wide-open guilelessness.

For someone so critical and opinionated, Joe was being uncharacteristically affable. On the other hand, maybe he too considered three hours a long time to sit in silence.

Vicki gave him a colorless version of the story she’d told Evelyn. Briefly, she considered adding what she’d learned from the missionary about her birth parents. But Holly’s death had made her target of enough sympathetic interest. She didn’t need the added curiosity and probing her prior connections to Guatemala were bound to arouse.

So she let her story trail off, turning her attention back to the landscape below. They were now well up into those green folds she’d seen from Guatemala City, the thatched hamlets and fields farther apart, the few unpaved roads snaking down mountainsides.

The DHC-2 tilted in a long, lazy curve to the left before Joe broke the silence. “Sounds like you two had a rough start in life. At least you landed on your feet okay.”

Vicki looked at him in surprise, then said slowly, “Yes, I guess we did. I never really thought of it that way. Maybe never even appreciated it as much as I should have. The Andrewses were very good to us.”

Uncomfortable with the subject, she changed it abruptly. “And what about you? Where did you learn to fly? It sure wasn’t offered with driver’s ed in my school.”

“My father was a pilot. My grandfather was a pilot. I probably teethed on the controls of a bush plane like this one.”

“Commercial? Or Peace Corps?”

Joe didn’t answer immediately, and from the withdrawal of his expression, Vicki had the impression he wished he’d never spoken. But turnabout was fair play.

 “Well? You said you’d grown up overseas. At least that’s what I assume you meant by a misspent youth. Unless you were a
really
underage surfer, you had to be tree hugger, people hugger, embassy, or multi-national yourself. Which was it?”

A feather touch on the controls tilted the wings. It wasn’t until the plane leveled out that Joe responded. “None of the above. My father was military.”

 It was the last thing Vicki would have guessed. “So that’s why you were in all those countries, because you kept moving to a new base?”

“Every year. My father never could sit still.” Joe grinned. “Before you say it—okay, just like his son, I suppose. Hey, I’m not complaining. I saw a lot of countries and found out I had an aptitude for languages. And extreme sports.”

“You never wanted to be a soldier like your father?” Vicki asked cautiously.

Joe gave her an unreadable look. “Let’s just say I learned early on that a life of rules wasn’t for me.”

“So you became a surfer instead.” Vicki tried to keep disappointment form her tone. “Didn’t your father mind?”

“Possibly. I never asked.”

“And your mother? Any brothers and sisters?”

“No siblings. And I haven’t seen my mother since I was a kid. One thing I guess we’ve got in common. She left my dad and me when I was about eight or nine. Make that nine, because we were heading overseas to Germany that time. For a while, I was sure she’d come back. But . . . she never did.”

“And you never saw your mother again? That’s awful. That . . . that’s worse than her dying.” For an instant the tough, self-reliant giant sprawled next to Vicki wavered into a vision of a small blond boy waiting at a window for his mother. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I came to terms with it years ago. At the time I was sure that if I’d been a cute, well-behaved child like I bet you were—” he turned to Vicki—“instead of an exceptionally naughty little boy, she might have stayed. But I came to understand she had issues of her own. Besides, my father was a good enough parent. Don’t count my lack of spit and polish against him. It wasn’t a bad life for a kid. Since my father found it easier to hire a nanny in some third world country than to find a relative to put up with a rowdy and not particularly well-disciplined little boy, I ended up seeing a lot more of the world than I would have otherwise. I’ve got no regrets.”

“Is that where you learned Spanish, then? Were you in Panama before the US pulled out?”

Again a long pause. Why was he so reluctant to talk about himself, especially after the way he’d pumped her for information? Then Joe nodded. “Sure, we did a couple tours down there when I was a kid.”

Vicki sighed. “It’s funny to think you were born stateside yet grew up in countries all over the world. While I was born in Guatemala, and all I really remember is the Andrews farm.”

“Born in Guatemala?”

Vicki wished she could bite back her slip. “Yes, at least that’s what my adoption papers said. Don’t ask me for more, because that’s all I was ever told. Mom and Dad Andrews figured my parents must have been tourists or something since Holly was born stateside, and we were both American citizens.”

All perfectly true, and thankfully, Joe didn’t pursue it. Now it was Vicki who was anxious to avoid further questions, so she focused on the new terrain flitting past under the rectangular shadow of the DHC-2’s stubby wings.

The plane had been gradually rising as they talked, and there was no longer any sign of mankind’s devastation. Or human habitation at all. Just fold after fold of the mountain range that made up the most remote region of the Guatemalan highlands, the steep slopes cloaked in unbroken and virgin cloud forest. It was the wildest landscape Vicki had ever seen.
And the most beautiful
, she thought.

Lush, verdant greens held every conceivable shade from the palest yellow-green of palm fronds in the valleys to the emeralds of the hardwoods so prized by illegal loggers to the evergreen of wind-twisted pines on the higher elevations. Those infinite shadings, along with the constant movement, created the illusion of a restless sea, the ridges and valleys forming the cresting and troughs of colossal green waves. Peach and lavender and orange of flowering trees added bright notes of color.

Threading through it all were glittering ribbons of water, leaping out into the white froth of waterfalls where the mountainside fell steeply, winding as lazy, brown ribbons between ridges.

And floating as wisps through the canopy, settling in thick, white pools that filled a valley, were the mists that gave the cloud forests their name.

"
This is my Father’s world
."

The world as its Creator had designed it to be. Before His final and greatest creation had worked its devastation.

“The Sierra de las Minas biosphere. Pretty, isn’t it?” Joe commented unnecessarily. “You said you wanted to choose a location.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Vicki’s duffel bag had been dumped on the bench seat behind them.

The question raised a sudden panic in Vicki. How had she actually put out of her mind her original purpose for this charter? Now that it was time, she had no idea what to do. Should there be some ceremony involved? Did she just pry open one of these windows?

I can’t do this! Not here. Not now. And not in this company
.

 “Unless you’d rather look for now and come back later by land or air,” Joe added quietly. “It would be no problem to take you up again. Or there’s a lot of beautiful country around the center where Holly worked.”

Vicki grabbed at the reprieve with relief. “Yes, yes, thank you. That would be best.” She waved a hand at the windshield. “It looks so pure and untouched—like the Garden of Eden.”

“The largest remaining cloud forest habitat left on the planet.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t suppose it’ll last much longer,” Vicki said lightly, but her mouth twisted as she turned her gaze back toward the beauty outside the cockpit. “Like the Garden of Eden, human beings will destroy it soon enough, and you can bet neither God nor man will lift a finger to stop it.”

“You sound angry. If you feel that way, then why are you coming up here?”

Vicki met his eyes. “You know why. It certainly isn’t for the hopeless—and thankless—task of saving some other country’s environment.”

“Holly didn’t feel it was such a hopeless task,” Joe said mildly, but Vicki was sure she read censure in his measured words.

She drew in an angry breath. “Holly was an optimist.”

“No, Holly had faith.”

Joe’s response was so unexpected that Vicki stared at him.

“You look shocked. Let me guess: a beach bum can’t have a strong work ethic or morals or faith.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic.” Vicki gave an unconvincing laugh. “I mean, come on. You’ve been around the world as much as I have. Enough to knock off any illusions. I wouldn’t put either you or myself in the same head-in-the-clouds, rose-tinted-glasses category as Holly.”

“Is that where you put faith? Hey, don’t count me in with you. If I didn’t have faith that Someone far greater and better than I was in charge of this universe
and
its outcome, if I believed it was up to my puny efforts to make things come out right, I’d swim out into the ocean. Or just give up on life.”

Again his tone was neutral with no suggestion of criticism, but something in his expression stung Vicki. “I haven’t given up on life. I’m just . . . I believe in being a realist.”

“A realist!” Now he did sound angry. “Is all that down there or a perfect sunrise over the ocean any less real than war and dirt and suffering? Oh no, it’s more than that, Vicki Andrews.”

The penetrating intentness of his gaze was so uncomfortable that Vicki wanted to scream at him to watch the road. Or the sky. Anywhere but her flushed face.

“No, I heard you loud and clear at the funeral. Oh, sure, you and Holly may have started off life rocky. But it sounds like you grew up in a home with plenty of faith and love. What happened to make you so different from Holly? To sour you on faith?”

Vicki was silent, her lashes dropping to shut out Joe’s look. She’d given him the bare outline of her biography. How did she add in the fear and darkness? The helplessness of feeling out of control in a world so torn and hurting that any momentary resting place or pleasure was only an illusion? The dread of greeting the brightest day with the certainty disaster could be a tightrope step away?