Island Promises (20 page)

Riley looked around. The steel drum band was playing softly and the guests were mingling, helping themselves to hors d’oeuvres and beverages.

“I can’t. We can’t. Dinner hasn’t been served yet. The bride and groom have to claim the first dance.” They both looked toward Henri and Millie, standing between Rosa and Stanley, greeting their guests.

Millie held on to Henri’s arm. She looked so happy and proud. If only their coworkers in Chicago could see her. There had been a flurry of e-mails and calls, most of which were interrupted by static, from Chicago. Some colleagues congratulated her, some said they were sorry to see her go, while a few wondered if her brain had been fried by the tropic sun. They couldn’t understand that there were more important things in life than the next big story, the next opening at the network level, or the next vacant anchor spot. Being happy, finding love, caring for the people around you, that’s what mattered, and that’s what Millie had found.

“Riley, what the hell is going on here?” Joe’s voice brought her back to the present and reminded her that this was not the man who cared about the important things in life the way she had learned to.

“Why don’t you tell me?” She cringed at the tremor in her voice. Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to care about Joe. He’d been someone to help her pass the lonely nights until she could get back to Chicago, her real life. She had been weak to let that change, to want him, need him, and, yes, love him. Worse, yet, she had believed he felt the same about her. She should have known better, protected her heart better.

Liar.
She stuffed the pesky voice back into place and squared her shoulders.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The hand he put on her arm was firm to prevent her from leaving. “This 20 questions game is a waste of time. I thought you weren’t the type who played games. I thought you were a straight shooter. Not one of those ditzy chicks.”

“How dare you.” She struggled against his grip but he held tight. “You’ve got some nerve talking about straight shooters. Is this all part of your little adventure? Am I something you can laugh about with your buddies while you’re sitting around bundled up in your parkas?”

“People are noticing,” Anthony whispered. So intent were they on each other that they hadn’t noticed Anthony and Mitchell slip beside them.

“Guys, guys,” Mitchell hissed. “You’re making a scene. Normally, I’d love that but not at Millie and Henri’s wedding. Wait for some night when we’re all out having a few drinks.”

Anthony took Joe by the arm and tried to pull him away. “The rum punch is calling our names,” he said.

“This isn’t finished Riley,” Joe shot over his shoulder as Anthony forcefully steered him toward the bar.

“Why don’t you take it up with one of those nice Eskimo women?” Riley craned her head around Mitchell to snipe back. He was trying to block her access and her view. She might have her geography wrong but who cared?

“What the hell . . .?” Whatever else Joe said was lost as the band turned up the volume and Anthony used his strength to keep Joe moving.

When they were gone, Mitchell held out one of Rosalee’s famous drinks in a coconut shell and Riley took it grudgingly. Her hands were shaking so she dribbled some down her chin but she downed most of it in one gulp.

“Easy there,” Mitchell said. “One scene a night is all you get. I don’t want to have to drag you out of here drunk and singing at the top of your lungs. I’ve heard you sing. It’s like one of those TV singing show auditions everyone can’t get over the next day.”

She decided to take Mitchell’s advice, to cool off and get herself together. With a drink in her hand, she retreated to the edge of the patio where the vegetation was high and thick. Sheltered, she turned and watched the wedding, a spectacular affair, colorful and cheerful, full of good food and drink and even better people. She was just beginning to relax when she was nearly jerked off her feet by a beefy arm encircling her neck.

Dropping the drink with a crash, she cried out. The shape, the feel, the smell, were all terrifyingly familiar.
Scully.
No mistaking the man. The fact that he would attack her
here
, where she was surrounded by her friends, made her shiver. He was either that desperate, that stupid, or that sure of himself. None of them were good.

Riley went limp to give herself some space and then jammed her elbow hard into Scully’s mid-section. He groaned and loosened his grip even more. She took the opportunity to step on his insole. When he didn’t budge, didn’t even blink, she remembered, too late, that they taught that in the self-defense course assuming you were wearing high heels, not soft island sandals.

It didn’t matter, though, because Joe, Anthony, Mitchell, and Henri had rushed forward as soon as she acted. Joe was ripping Scully’s arm from her neck and spinning him around. Anthony and Henri were taking on Mikah, circling him and jabbing, then backing out of his reach before the big man could react. Mitchell chased Candy to the edge of the jungle and jumped on his back. Skinny Candy bucked and bellowed like a wild horse and Mitchell whooped and swept his arm in the air like a cowboy.

Free from Scully’s grip, Riley fell against a nearby table. So far, the melee hadn’t touched the wedding set-up. While she was catching her breath, two of the guests came up behind her, helped her to her feet, and escorted her behind a makeshift line of guests who were strung out across the width of the patio, shoulder-to-shoulder, to prevent any damage to the wedding reception.

Stanley broke through the line, a broom in his hand, and began to swat at the combatants. Rosa came next, with the garden hose.

“Stop this right now,” she commanded in her best professor’s voice. “Stop, or I will drench you with this cold water.”

None of them paid any attention. Joe and Scully were wrestling on the ground. It was hard to tell who was getting the better of whom, or even if there was a winner. Candy was still whinnying and Mitchell was holding on for dear life, looking like he was riding a mechanical bull in a Texas tourist bar. Henri and Anthony were playing block guy like bullfighters. They called to him and he charged, his head down, his feet stomping the ground. But they were quicker than he was and managed to jump out of the way before he could connect. The more they did it, the madder he became.

“For the last time, stop!” Rosa commanded. When no one paid attention, she called for Stanley to step away and then turned the hose on them. Stunned, they froze, then hollered as the cold water washed over them.

Just then a whistle sounded and Chief of Police Ricardo Juarez and two officers arrived. The chief took the hose out of Rosa’s hands and turned off the flow of water as his officers made their way to the combatants. They pulled them apart and lined the men up against the patio wall.

Scully was holding his rib cage and blood was running from his nose. Mikah was snorting like an animal, breathing hard and still furious but looked uninjured. Candy was rubbing his back and, as usual, having a hard time standing still.

The wedding party was a mess. Dirty and wet, blood ran from a gash down Joe’s head into his eye. Anthony’s knuckles were scraped and the buttons were ripped off his shirt. The outfit and hairstyle Mitchell had spent too much time on were ruined. His hair stuck up at odd angles and his wet silk shirt clung to his body. Henri seemed to have escaped with minimal damage save a ruined wedding suit.

Too mortified to pick up her head and look the chief or any of Millie’s new family in the eye, Riley lowered her gaze to the ground. This was her best friend’s wedding and she had ruined it. All she had wanted for Millie was a peaceful, loving ceremony and it had turned into a brawl. How would she ever apologize? How would she ever make it up to her? If she could have, Riley would have slunk away and not shown her face for the next month, at least.

“This is a wedding,” the chief said, pacing down the line of grungy, soaked men. “You should all be ashamed.” He paused and flicked a piece of dirt off Henri’s white suit. The men lined against the wall, the official pacing in front. It could have been a recreation of a 1950’s French Foreign Legion film.

“They started it. We just come here to see the lady reporter. To tell her to lay off.” Candy said, without the sense to keep his mouth closed.

“Shut up,” Scully growled.

“You were not invited here, I presume,” Captain Juarez looked over at Rosa, who nodded. “I am. As soon as my shift ends.” He made a dramatic show of looking at his watch. “That will give you approximately one-half hour to clear out so that there is no trace. Should that happen, no charges will be filed.” Again, he looked toward Rosa and Stanley who nodded in assent.

“But we come for her. We need to talk to her. About those news stories.”

Candy would be a prosecutor’s dream
, Riley thought,
unable as he was to keep anything to himself
.

“Hell.” Scully spat on the ground. “Maybe we been lookin’ at this all wrong. Maybe she done us a favor. Maybe we’ll be doing a book deal and then starring in one of them Hollywood movies about pirates that seem to be so popular these days.”

“Whatever,” the big one grunted.

“I jest want to get the hell outta here and have some fun. Comin’ with, darlin’?” Scully held his hand out to Riley.

Before she could react, Joe abandoned his place in line and went after him. The two officers also reacted but not quite quickly enough. Later Riley would wonder if they’d dragged their feet on purpose. Joe got in two good punches before the officers pulled him away.

“You seen what he done. You’re all witnesses. He hit me,” Scully yelled.

“Enough,” the chief commanded. “Go home and let this all be forgotten.”

“Why should I do that? I got witnesses. The scumbag jumped me.”

“You should do that because if you don’t, we will have to take you to jail. I will be attending the wedding of my good friends’ son. Tomorrow I will be off on holiday for one, maybe two weeks. Nothing will happen until I return and begin to process the paper work. Knowing I will come back to that will cast a cloud over my holiday. I will not like that nor will I be inclined toward the person or persons who cast it. That is why you should go home now.”

Scully glared first at the police chief, then at Joe and finally at the wedding guests. He must have made up his mind because he spat once again and jerked his hand, indicating skinny and block guy should follow him back into the jungle.

“You ain’t worth it,” Scully said to Riley, his parting shot as they left the patio.

Stanley signaled the band and they began playing. Waiters who had been watching from inside, behind the glass doors, came out and circulated drinks, which were being downed at an astonishing rate. Gradually people began eating again, dancing and laughing. There was an excited buzz as the events were repeated, each guest producing his or her own personal spin on it. The men disappeared inside and emerged a short time later with clean clothes and their hair freshly combed. Millie clung to Henri as though he had returned from two years on the battlefront.

Chief Juarez took one of the rum drinks, declaring his holiday was beginning a half-hour early and that he was now officially a wedding guest. “My wife, Celone, will be joining me shortly,” he said.

“Wait.” Riley ran after him, grabbing his elbow to stop his retreat. He looked pointedly down at where her fingers touched his arm and she relented, letting go. “My passport. I need it. I’m leaving tomorrow.

“My dear, I don’t have it.”

“What? You took it from me. You can’t just take a person’s passport and hold on to it.”

“It has not been in my possession for some time. Not since you came to see my wife. She declared that keeping it was not lawful. I expected it would have been returned to you by now.”

“Who has it?” Even as she asked the question, Riley felt herself go cold. She could guess who had it. Just another game, another way to control the situation and her. Since he’d first held her, had made love to her on a gently rocking
Reprieve
, she had been fighting the urge to believe that what she felt for him was love. With even more of her will she’d been blocking out the growing thoughts that maybe, just maybe, he was falling for her, too. In the deepest part of her mind, in the part that acted on feeling not reason, she nurtured the fantasy that it was true.

Now she had to acknowledge that what she’d thought was love was only business. The longer she stayed here, out of touch, the longer he could hang on to
Reprieve
. Probably right up until the time he left for Greenland, when he wouldn’t need her or the boat anymore.

The police chief pointed his nightstick. Riley followed the line of sight and gritted her teeth. Of course, he was pointing at Joe.

Throwing back her shoulders, holding her head up high, Riley walked as regally as she could over to where Joe stood leaning against the bar, talking to some men, probably bragging about the fight.
Well, he won’t be bragging when I get through with him.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me.” She didn’t acknowledge his conversation, didn’t even bother to say excuse me.

“What’s that, Riley?”

“My passport.”

She watched as he glanced quickly over at the chief, who was sitting at one of the tables, plate heaped with food, laughing and talking with those around him.

“Let me explain,” he said.

Smack!
The sound of flesh against flesh rang out, making the people around them gasp. Pain radiated along her palm as she watched the skin along Joe’s cheek redden. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d have the outline of her hand imprinted on the side of his face.

“How could you?” she demanded, knowing her face was probably as red as his. The patio had gone quiet and everyone was staring but she didn’t care. “I trusted you.”

“It was for your own good. Your own protection.”

“If I want a bodyguard, I’ll hire my own, thank you very much.”

“Look, I didn’t get it back for a while and when I did, you didn’t seem like you wanted to go.” He was whispering, obviously hoping to avoid yet another scene at the wedding.

One hand on her hip, she held the other out in front of her, palm open, and tapped her foot impatiently.

“For God’s sake, Riley, I don’t have it here.” He leaned in and she could smell the soap he must have used to clean off the mud.

“Kids, kids, kids.” Mitchell put his arms around both of them, drawing them in. “Enough already. I mean, come on now. Everyone wants their wedding to be different and memorable but this is a little over the top.” He kept a smile on his face but he was squeezing their shoulders with all his might. “Make nice with each other, play nice.”