Eye of the Beholder (11 page)

The very idea made her catch her breath. How would she feel? Good. Natural. Alive.

Her fingers shook too hard to fasten the laces. There were so many other things to fear, she shouldn’t fear these feelings for Rafe. She wasn’t like her father. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She moistened her lips and looked up.

But Rafe had already gone past. She had only a glimpse of his back silhouetted against the firelight before he yanked on his clothes, slung his rifle over his shoulder and faded into the darkness.

It was a strange noise that woke her. Glenna opened her eyes, surprised to realize that dawn had already broken. The fire had burned down to a few smoldering embers. A bird darted through the hazy wreath of smoke that hung in the trees, warbling a high-pitched call. It was answered moments later by a call in the distance.

Glenna pressed back into Rafe’s warmth. Sometime during the night he had spooned himself around her, his thighs cradling her bottom, his arm draped over her waist. The position had felt so natural that Glenna had been able to sleep more soundly than she’d believed possible.

He’d said that he wanted to start out at daybreak, but it was already well past that. She glanced down at his hand where it rested against her midriff. His palm was turned upward with his fingers slightly curled. His arm was heavy on her waist and his chest rose and fell against her back in the slow rhythm of deep sleep.

She wondered if she should wake him. She was reaching for his hand when she spotted the fruit beside the fire pit. Coconuts, mangoes, and some small dark green sphere she didn’t recognize were stacked in a colorful heap. That must have been what he’d been doing after his swim, she thought. He’d gone in search of food to take with them today.

Her eyes misted. If she thanked him, he would say that it was his job, but he really was the most incredible man. She slipped her hand into his palm, fitting her fingers between his. “Rafe?”

There was no change in his breathing, no sign that he’d heard her.

She squeezed his fingers, finally noticing how hot his skin was. She raised her voice. “Rafe? It’s morning.”

The noise that had awakened her came again. Not a birdcall but a rapid clicking sound. She twisted to look at him.

His face was drawn. The skin on his good side was as pale as his scars. She focused on his mouth and immediately realized what the sound had been.

His teeth were chattering.

“Oh, my God.” She slipped out from under his arm and knelt beside him. She laid the underside of her wrist against his forehead. He was burning up. “Oh, my God. Rafe!”

His eyelids fluttered. He looked at her blankly for a moment. He blinked twice and his gaze sharpened. He rolled to his back and flung his arm out to grab the rifle from the ground behind him.

“No, Rafe!” She grasped his shoulders and leaned her weight on him, trying to keep him from getting up. “No one’s here. It’s okay. You don’t have to—”

He brushed off her weight as if it were nothing and sat up. Tendons stood out along the side of his neck as he clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from clacking. He scanned the clearing, his gun held ready.

“Rafe, for God’s sake, lie down! You’re ill.”

He put his index finger against her lips to signal silence. He tipped his head to the side to listen. A full minute passed before he lowered the gun and returned his gaze to hers.

His eyes were too bright, she thought. “You’re sick,” she said. “You must have caught a chill in the pool.”

“No.” His voice was scratchy. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t catch a chill.”

“But you have a fever.” She returned her wrist to his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

He caught her hand and lowered it. A shudder rippled through him. “I’ll be okay. It’s daylight. Let’s go.”

“No.”

“Glenna…”

“You’re in no shape to go anywhere. Do you want the chill to turn into pneumonia?”

“It’s not pneumonia.”

“Then what is it?”

“My wound.” He braced the rifle butt against the ground and used it to help himself up. He swayed.

Glenna got to her feet as quickly as she could, propping her shoulder under his arm before he could topple. “Rafe, sit down before you hurt yourself.”

“We have to keep moving. We can’t stop yet.”

“We can’t— Rafe, watch out!”

His knees buckled. Glenna cried out as his weight forced her downward, but he pushed clear from her before he hit the ground. He rolled to his side, his lips pressed tight in pain. Nevertheless, he propped the rifle butt beside him and levered himself into a sitting position.

Glenna wanted to weep at his stubbornness. “Rafe, please. You’ve got to rest or you’ll get worse.”

He leaned his forehead against the side of the gun barrel and panted. “I’ll be okay. It’s not a big deal. We have to move.”

“Fine, Rafe. We’ll do that. Right after breakfast, okay?”

“What?”

“That’s what all the fruit you gathered is for, right? I have to eat something before we start out.” She spoke hurriedly, trying to stave off his next attempt to get up. “I’m hungry. I couldn’t possibly go anywhere yet, so you’re going to have to wait for me, all right?”

He looked at her as if he knew she was stalling. “Eat fast.”

“Certainly.”

She hopped to the pile of fruit and grabbed whatever was on top, then returned to sit down at Rafe’s side. He was still leaning against the rifle, but his eyes were closed. She tossed the fruit aside and looked at his thigh.

The bandage that she’d made out of her suit jacket was gone—he must have discarded it when he’d gone into the pool. The torn edges of his jumpsuit gaped open over a shiny, viciously red swelling. She used her fingertip to lift up a loose flap of the black fabric. She had no more than a glimpse of a long groove of shredded, inflamed flesh before Rafe closed his fingers over her wrist and moved her hand away.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, her heart racing. She swallowed hard and lifted her gaze to his face. “Rafe, this is infected. It couldn’t have gotten this bad overnight.”

“Germs multiply fast in the tropics.”

“I should have realized you weren’t just feeling the heat when I saw you sweating yesterday,” she said. “I should have seen that you were ill. But all I thought about was how nice you were being to me and what a wonderful man you are and all the while you must have been suffering—”

“Forget it, Glenna.”

“I’m so sorry, Rafe. How could I have been so blind?”

“I didn’t want you to know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I figured you would react like this.”

“You need medicine. I could retrace our steps and find my way back to Juarez. Maybe I could make a bargain with him, offer to have my family pay him whatever he wants for a doctor.”

Rafe curled her hand into his chest toward her, bringing his face within inches of hers. His eyes were still feverishly bright, but his gaze was rock steady. “You do that and we’re both dead.”

“But—”

“You weren’t blindfolded on the trip to his house, Glenna. Until now, no one knew he had a stronghold on this island, but you’ve seen his setup. You could identify his accomplices. Whatever happens, he won’t let you go.”

“But I have to do
something.
Do you want some water? Do you—”

“Glenna, if you really want to do something, you can help me stand up. The stream we followed yesterday flows out where the pool narrows. We’ll stick with it as long as we can.”

“Rafe—”

“Don’t argue, Glenna. I’ve got to get you as close to the rendezvous as possible before…” He pressed his lips together, tensing as a wave of shivering swept over him.

He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. Glenna could all too easily picture what was going to happen. She might not have any personal experience with conditions like these, but she’d read books, she’d seen movies. She knew that gone untreated, an infected wound would fester. Rafe could lose his leg. He could even lose his life.

Oh, God, no. He couldn’t die. Not like this, not because of the bullet he’d taken for her.

She wanted to whimper and curl into a ball on the mat of palm fronds and pretend she was home and have the nightmare end.

But Glenna Hastings never fell apart. She was always in control. She could do this. She owed Rafe her life.

She pulled away from him and retrieved her crutch and their bottle of water, then returned to Rafe’s side and helped him to his feet.

She never did find the place where the stream flowed out of the pool. Ten feet from their camp, Rafe collapsed.

Chapter 7

G
lenna knelt at the edge of the pool and wrung out the cloths she was using for compresses. She had never felt more useless in her life. What good was her career or the skills she’d been so proud of? What point had there been in denying her heritage? She would give anything to have access to the Vanderhayden money right now. And a phone. She would charter a helicopter and fly Rafe to a hospital. She’d call on every family connection to round up the best doctors. She’d build a hospital right on this spot if that’s what it would take.

She dunked the cloths back into the water. These rags were all that was left of her skirt. At least her wardrobe was still proving useful.

She hiccuped on a sob, propped her crutch under her arm and pushed back to her feet. The light was fading fast, but it was easy to find her way back to their camp. She’d been back and forth to the pool so many times, she’d worn a path.

Rafe’s eyes were open when she returned. Shehope that it was a positive sign, but he’d been fading in and out of consciousness all day as his fever had raged. He’d told her the fever itself was a good thing, simply his body’s way of fighting the infection. Glenna suspected he was trying to protect her from the truth.

Yes, that was Rafe. Flat on his back, crippled with fever, and he was still trying to protect her.

He’d lanced his wound himself shortly after midday. He’d tried to shelter her from the horror of that, too. He’d cut away his left pant leg with the knife he’d taken from the guard, then sharpened the knife on a piece of rock, instructed her on how to build up the fire and sterilized the blade. He hadn’t made a sound as he’d sliced into the puffy mass of swollen tissue on his thigh. He’d been silent as the foul-smelling fluid had drained. When he’d used the hot blade to sear the wound closed afterward, she had been the one to cry out.

God, she wished it was only a nightmare. But she couldn’t fall apart. Rafe needed her. As useless as she was, she had to keep trying.

She dropped to his side, folded a cloth and put it on his forehead. “Hello, Rafe.” She forced a smile. “How are you feeling?”

His eyes looked right past her. There was no recognition in his gaze.

“Rafe, do you want a drink? I refilled the water bottle where the stream flows into the pool.” She held the bottle to his lips. “It tastes wonderful.”

He swallowed a few mouthfuls of water. “John?”

She set the bottle aside and blinked back a surge of tears. He’d called out that name before. His periods of lucidity were getting fewer and farther between. “It’s Glenna, Rafe.”

“John? Answer me!”

“It’s all right, Rafe.” She turned the compress over. It was already warm to the touch. “Try to rest.”

He grabbed her hand, his grip startlingly strong. “Have to find him. Got to get him out.”

“Rafe…”

“Got to help him.”

Glenna glanced at his leg. The edges of the wound were dry—the treatment he’d self-administered had been brutal but effective. Still, she worried that he would do further damage if he moved around. She eased her hand from his grasp and tried to soothe him. “We will, Rafe. You rest now. We’ll get John.”

“The water. He’s in the water.”

“Okay. We’ll get a boat.”

“No.” He moved his head from side to side in a quick negative. The folded cloth fell to the ground. “No time. He can’t swim.”

Glenna put a fresh compress on his forehead. Can’t swim? she wondered. She had assumed Rafe was reliving a mission, but wouldn’t his fellow soldiers know how to swim?

“John! Johnny, hang on!”

His voice was rising. She could see his muscles tense. Concerned, she leaned over him and tried to catch his gaze. “Rafe, pleas. Lie still.”

He put his hand over his scarred cheek. His lips pulled back in a grimace of pain. “Can’t see him. Too much blood. Oh, God! Johnny!”

Rafe tried to get up. Someone was grabbing his shoulders, calling his name, telling him to stop, but he couldn’t. Not this time. Johnny hadn’t surfaced yet.

There were people in the way. So many other guys needing help. Each time Rafe went into the river, he pulled someone else out. He couldn’t pass them by. He couldn’t leave them to drown.

But where was Johnny?

Rafe pressed his palm harder against his face. The cold water was numbing the pain, but pieces of skin kept sliding between his fingers. He couldn’t hold his face together. He couldn’t see. There was too much blood in the water.

Johnny had been at the back of the bus, not up front with the driver like Rafe. All the first-string guys liked to ride in the back on the way to the games. They’d been flying high today. One more victory and they’d go to the state championships. The college scouts would be watching the game. They’d be watching Johnny.

Everyone loved John. He was always smiling. His laughter had been the last sound Rafe had heard before the bus had crashed through the guardrail.

The driver was dead before they’d hit the water—a post had come through the windshield and pinned him to his seat. The broken glass and sheared-off pieces of metal that had followed had caught Rafe in the face. He didn’t know if he screamed. He hoped not. He had to be brave. He had to save Johnny.

“John!”

“Please, Rafe. Calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He squinted, trying to focus on the shadow in front of him. Who was that? There hadn’t been any cheerleaders on the bus, had there? Johnny’s girls. That’s what the guys called them. John always had the prettiest one on his arm. Sometimes the girls would talk to Rafe, but it was only so they could get closer to John. Yes, everyone loved John.