Just a Kiss Away (48 page)

“Oku, I can’t do this,” she whispered.

“Then Mari will get Sam,” Oku said matter-of-factly.

Lollie followed Oku’s gaze to where the last daughter stood. She was absolutely the most beautiful girl Lollie had ever seen. She had straight hair that swayed down to the backs of her knees and shone like black jet. Lollie touched the ragged ends of her burned hair and sighed. Mari was tall and slim, and she had a bigger bosom. The conversation between Jim and Sam flashed through her mind. She promptly marched over to the starting line.

The two women knelt at their places, holding the boxes with the bugs. Lollie looked up at Sam. He was talking to Oku and his shaking his head. She wondered if they were talking about her.

Sam probably believed she couldn’t do it. Her mind flashed with the image of the rice bowl sitting on his angry head, and she had to admit he had good reason, a baptism by rice so to speak. But that had been weeks before. That Lollie LaRue was gone, she hoped.

She took the lid off the box and scowled at the thing. It was brown and black and just as ugly as sin. A native stood nearby with a spear. When the spear dropped, the race would start. Lollie looked at Mari, who fingered her bug, stroking it as if it were treasured pet.

Lollie’s stomach tightened, and chills raced down her arms. The cockroaches were just awful.

The spear dropped. Man tickled her bug and whistled and coaxed it along. Lollie took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut and touched the cockroach’s underside. It scurried over her finger.

She screamed loud enough to crack heaven. Her bug flew right past Mari’s.

Lollie’s shriek finally faded into a groan. Her shaking stopped. She opened her eyes to see her brown and black bug crawling in the dirt a good three feet past the finish line. She’d won again, and she’d saved Sam.

The natives closed in, carrying her along with the crowd. She laughed and smiled. She was so excited. She’d done it! Pushing and digging her way through the natives, she worked her way toward him, shouting his name, “Sam! Sam!”

She reached the end of the crowd and squeezed through, a proud smile on her face.

Sam was gone.

Lollie stood there, stunned and wondering what right he had to be angry. She should be angry after going through all those awful games to save him, when all the time he’d been able to escape. And he hadn’t even seen her win the last one. She shivered, still feeling that horrid bug. Then she thought about his face—angry, trying to intimidate her, all bossy male arrogance.

He turned around.

She punched him in the jaw, hard.

“Dammit to hell!”

The boat wobbled and tipped, and both Sam and Lollie fell into the water. She started to move her arms the way Sam had taught her, but he grabbed her clothes and pulled her over to the landing. He hauled her onto the rock ledge, none too gently, and flipped the boat over.

“Get in . . . now.” He was mad.

Well, she wasn’t too happy with him, either. She stuck her nose up and stepped into the boat.

“Sit down!” He shook the water from his head and got in, too. He glared at her. She glared right back.

“ ‘Ave yer bloody fight later. Go!” Oku shouted, then pointed up to where a large number of natives with torches were running down the steps.

Lollie took Medusa from Oku and sat, but gave Sam her most scathing look.

He shoved off.

She turned to the old woman, wanting to thank her, to say something, but not good-bye. “Will you be all right?” She pointed at the approaching natives.

Oku grinned and waved them on. “Them won’t ‘urt me.” She laughed. “I’m the bloomin’ king’s mother!” She blew Lollie a kiss and waved as the boat caught the current and drifted downstream.

Half an hour later, Medusa was perched on the rim of the drifting boat, singing “Britannia Rules the Waves.” Sam and Lollie sat at opposite ends of the boat, each trying to outglare the other. Lollie felt she was winning.

Sam lolled against the bow of the boat, his arms hooked over the rim of the bow, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and his boots resting on the small plank seat in the center of the wooden boat. He reached up and rubbed his dark, stubbly jaw and eyed her.

“I hope it hurts.” She stuck her nose up and looked away.

“Why the hell are you so mad?”

“Because I saved you!”

“So.”

She slowly turned back to face him. “So? So? Your backside isn’t throbbing from riding one of those . . . those horned cows. You didn’t have your hand crushed by some love-struck native girl. You didn’t have mud flung at you and natives yelling at you. You damn Yankee, you! You didn’t have to tickle a horrid cockroach!” She shivered.

“Are you through?” He hadn’t moved, hadn’t flinched, just sat there, grinning.

“No! I hate you, Sam. I really do.”

“Then why did you save me?” He looked as if he was really enjoying this, which made her even madder. “Because I thought
you
needed saving for a change!”

“I suppose I did.”

“No, you didn’t, you damn Yankee. I fought for you and you’d already gotten free by the time I’d won.”

“Awk! Damn Yankee!”

“Shhh! Quiet, Medusa.” She frowned. “How did you get free?”

“I rubbed the ropes against the bamboo until they tore through.”

“You didn’t think I could do it, did you? I was trying too hard, concentrating just like you said, fighting the way you’d told me to, and all the while you didn’t think I could do it.”

“Now, Lollie—”

“Don’t you ‘now Lollie’ me, you . . . you—” She stopped, her attention caught by a distant sound. She peered over his shoulder. “Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“Is that a waterfall we’re heading for?”

He shot upright, his head whipping around. “Oh, shit!” He grabbed an oar and rammed it into the water, trying to take the boat out of the current. “Grab the other oar and try to slow the boat down!”

She stuck the oar in the water. The current was so strong it took every ounce of strength to hold the oar straight. The water pushed and pulled, and the boat would start to slow, then suddenly pick up speed. Every time that happened Sam swore.

The river was long and rushing faster and faster, the roar of falling water grew louder and a massive waterfall, as wide as the native village, lay in the distance. The boat rocked and reeled—the same motions that always made her sick. This time she was too scared to be sick.

Sam’s oar broke with a piercing crack. He swore, threw it in the river, and grabbed her oar. A few seconds later it broke, too. He just stared at the falls.

“Sam?”

“What?”

“Are we gonna die?”

He turned back, sat down, and looked at her. The boat picked up speed. “I can’t get us out of this one, Lollipop.”

She looked at Medusa and held out her hand for the bird to step onto. “You sweet bird . . .”

Sam snorted.

She ignored him and lifted the mynah bird high. “Go! Fly back to Jim, Medusa.” She tossed the bird up, and it flew up, higher and higher. Then it circled and flew off into the trees.

Lollie looked at Sam for a long moment. They were gonna die, and he sat there, opposite her, no sign of emotion on his hard, handsome face. She wondered what he was thinking. “Sam?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

He closed his eye and looked down briefly.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

“Lollie . . . I—”

The current grew so strong the boat whipped ahead. “You what?” She held the sides of the boat.

He took a deep, resolved breath. “I was wrong. It wasn’t just good sex. I only said that to stop the whole thing before it went too far. We’re too different, you and I. I’m a mongrel, a slum mongrel. You’re show stock.”

“I don’t care, Sam. I love you.”

The boat dipped and swirled. His hands gripped the rim of the boat until his knuckles were white. His gaze never left her face. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She looked at him. “Do you mean it?”

The boat spun again, and she held on tighter, needing to hear his answer.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Sam. I needed you.”

He laughed in that sardonic way of his. “You sure did. I’ve never met anyone who needed saving as much as you.” He paused, looked at the water for an uncomfortable moment, and admitted, “I
was
jealous.”

“Good.” She smiled. Then her smile faded as she remembered something she’d wanted so badly. “I dreamed of having your children, Sam.”

“Aw crap, Lollie, I told you I’m not a hero in a romance novel. I can’t say that stuff to you.”

“I love you, Sam!” She had to shout over the roar of the water.

He didn’t say anything.

“Say something, please! We’re gonna die!” she screamed at him.

He took a deep breath and yelled, “I lost my eye when I was a prisoner during a rebellion in Angola. I was twenty-five years old, and I’d been sent by the army to Angola to fight. I got caught. They tortured me to get the whereabouts of a rebel leader who was being protected by the United States. I wouldn’t tell them. They took out an eye before anyone could get me out. No one knew the U.S. was involved. Jim got me out, against orders.” He didn’t look at her.

“I still love you, Sam!”

“Dammit . . .” He sounded angry. With a deep breath of resignation he looked at her. “I’d have given you those kids.”

“What?”

“I said I’d have given you those kids!” He moved closer to her and touched her cheek.

“I wanted you to love me again,” she admitted, “like that night in the cave.”

He gave her a slow, lazy smile. “I wanted to . . . more.”

“Oh, Sam.” She covered his hand with her own. “I wanted your face be the last one I saw every night, and I wanted to wake up every morning in your arms.”

“Come here,” he yelled, opening his arms.

She dove into them. “You’re my hero.”

“You’re . . . aw, crap,” he muttered.

“What?”

He looked down at her. “I almost said, ‘You’re my heart.’ “

“Am I?”

“Yeah.”

She tore her gaze from his and looked toward the falls, only twenty feet away.

“Come closer, Lollipop.” He put his hand behind her head and pulled her up until she was just a kiss away. “If I’m going to die, I’ll do it with at least part of me where I want it to be.”

He kissed her, hard, and they soared over the falls.