Just a Kiss Away (9 page)

The soldiers came in, frowning.

She stopped singing. They stopped frowning, but their knives were still poised, just as before. Behind them came another man carrying two wooden bowls filled with steamy rice and some kind of fragrant sauce. Her stomach growled, very unladylike. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, and that had been the mango and bread she’d had before her bath.

She hadn’t really thought about food, out of habit, for one of Madame Devereaux’s rules was that a lady never let hunger get the best of her. Never. She’d learned at a young age that a true lady, like her mother, ate lightly, delicately, and never, ever let her hunger be known. Yet sometimes, on rare occasions, her stomach would protest, doing all that embarrassing gurgling like it was cheering the food’s arrival. She pressed her hands to her stomach as if that gesture could quiet the growling.

The little man handed a bowl to her. Food of any kind would have smelled good. Her mouth began to water as she stared at the bowl. The rice was brown, covered in a clear sauce with chunks of meat, and although the whole thing looked a little pasty, the smell was tempting.

Walking over to the corner, the server gave the other dish to Sam, who sat back against the hut wall again. She looked up, properly waiting for him to be served, and for their utensils to arrive.

He didn’t wait. Stunned, she watched him wolf down his food. He actually used his fingers to scoop up the rice. Her mouth fell open.

The door began to close and she realized the server was leaving. “Stop! Wait! Please.”

She grabbed the door and almost spilled her food. He turned back toward her. She smiled politely. “I would like some silverware, please.”

Sam choked, coughing as if he was about to die. She wasn’t that lucky, though. His manners were atrocious, so it didn’t surprise her one bit that he’d choked. It was probably from cramming a handful of food in his mouth before he’d had a chance to swallow. The man used his fingers like shovels. It was disgusting.

The server still stood there, blankly staring at her. “Silverware.” She raised her voice, hoping to make him better understand her.

He shrugged.

Sam coughed.

“A fork, knife—oh, I don’t suppose you’d give me that. Well, at least a spoon, please,” she repeated, louder, miming the action of eating with silverware. Odd noises came from Sam’s corner, but she ignored them and kept gesturing. The man frowned, still not understanding.

She pretended to stick a fork into the bowl, then made exaggerated sawing gestures as if she were cutting meat.

He watched her intently, then grinned.
“Cuchillos!”
And he pantomimed eating.

“Yes!” She returned his smile. “Yes, I’d like some coocheehoes, please.”

The man nodded, then went out and closed the door. The sound of a throat clearing echoed from Sam’s corner. She looked at him. “Are you gonna be all right?”

His face looked a little red, and moisture glistened in his crinkled eye. The man should really be more careful. Good manners might save him from choking to death. She decided he needed an etiquette lesson.

“Mr. Forester . . . Sam. Where I come from its considered rude to eat before everyone is ready, especially before a lady.”

He shoveled some more food inside and then talked around it. “Is that so?” He chewed some more and finally had the grace to swallow. “Where I come from, you eat what you can, as fast as you can, or someone else will eat it for you.”

His words instantly reminded her of his background—poor and hungry. Surely he didn’t think she would steal his food. Before she could suggest that he didn’t have to worry, the door opened again and the little man came in holding out a small spoon.

“Thank you kindly.” She smiled and accepted the spoon, waiting until the man left before eating. The sounds of Sam’s noisy eating smacked from the corner. With those eating habits, Madame Devereaux would have made him miss three meals to learn proper abstinence. She started to dip her spoon into the rice, but her mind flashed with the image of children playing with broken bricks instead of blocks, hungry children who had to steal bread to eat.

Sam had already learned about abstinence. She wondered what it was like to be really hungry, not because you had to be ladylike but because you had no food. Suddenly all the food she’d wasted over the years came to mind, along with a strong dose of guilt. She paused and glanced at him. He continued to eat as if it were his last meal.

She set the bowl down and struggled to get into a standing position. Concentrating on keeping her balance, she bent down and picked up her meal, straightening very carefully so she wouldn’t spill the rice. She balanced the bowl in both hands and shuffled across the room until she stood barely a foot away from him.

He looked up at her, suspicion on his hard-bitten face. She held out the bowl. He looked at it, but didn’t budge. “Here,” she offered with a smile, “you can have mine.” For one brief instant, confusion and something akin to embarrassment flashed across his face, but quickly melded into a hateful red look of male anger.

She backed up a step, wary of his reaction.

“Keep your damn food, Miss LaRue, and your misplaced pity. I don’t want either of them.” He looked as if he wanted to hit her.

She was afraid he might just do it, too, so she shuffled back over to her spot near the door, a little hurt by his reaction. She was only trying to be nice. After plopping back down on the hard floor, she stared at the bowl of food, not understanding his anger. Where she came from a person accepted a gift graciously. He didn’t. Her eyes burned, and she swallowed hard around the dry knot of wounded feelings that had lodged in her tight throat.

Hesitantly she scooped a small spoonful from the bowl and delicately placed it in her mouth. She put the spoon back in the bowl, intending to savor the flavor of the food.

It had none. She stared at the strange food. Her appetite was gone. He didn’t want her food, but now neither did she. She looked around the primitive dank hut, at the rusty old splintered water pail and the green moldy mats. Nothing was familiar.

There was nothing she knew here, nothing familiar, nothing to hold on to. And that scared her to death. More than anything, she just wanted to go home to Belvedere and her overprotective brothers. Right now, she’d have given anything for that protection, and for a shoulder to lean on.

Luna rammed a gag into her mouth. Immediately Sam’s tense neck and shoulder muscles slackened. He took a long, relieved breath. She jerked the gag out and started again.

“Where’s the gag?” Luna and his guards searched the ground.

She was sitting on it. Sam had seen her ram it under her skirts, which meant she knew exactly what she was doing. God, she could scream. He could feel the racket ring in his teeth. If he hadn’t hated Luna so much, he would have gone over and gotten the damn gag himself, just to shut her up. He’d suffered through worse torture, but on a scale of one to ten, this was a good eight—ten being the loss of an eye, and one being the bite of a whip.

Luna gave up the search and moved toward her. Sam stiffened, instinct telling him what was coming. Her face was still purple, her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and her scream had dropped a gravelly octave. Luna stood at her side, his face a picture of anger and frustration. Then, as he raised his fist, his look changed to one of sick delight.

“If you damage the goods, you won’t get paid,” Sam said, his voice inflected with boredom he was far from feeling. Luna meant to batter her into silence. Sam could see it on the man’s face. He knew that look.

Luna stopped, obviously struggling to keep from following through with his swing. Slowly he lowered his hand, still knotted in a tight fist.

“Leave her,” Luna shouted to his guards before he spun on his bootheel and left, his guards following like shadows. The door slammed shut.

“You can stop now. They’ve gone.”

Her scream tapered off, and her damp icy blue eyes popped open.

“Quite effective,” he complimented her. “Use it often?”

She stared at him for the longest time. He didn’t break their stare, and finally she admitted in a hoarse voice, “Only when my wits fail me.”

“That often, huh?”

“You know, Samuel—”

“Sam, not Samuel.” He paused.
“Nobody
calls me Samuel.”

“Oh, all right, then. You know, Sam, you have to take fault for this.” Her voice rasped defensively.

“You’re probably right, but casting the blame won’t save us now.”

“Well, my daddy will pay the ransom. He’ll pay it, you’ll see. He’ll save me,” she said almost too quickly. Her voice was firm, contradicting the doubt that showed in her ice-colored eyes. She stared over her shoulder for the longest time, an unseeing look in those same light eyes.

If he’d ever met a woman who needed saving, it was this one.

“I never doubted it for a minute,” he said. Her eyes snapped back to lock her gaze with his. Curiosity piqued, he tried to read her expression. It was wistful, as if she’d lost something precious. She averted those eyes, her fingers nervously twisting that sparkly thing on her shoe again.

What was this? he thought. Her actions belied her words. They implied that she was unsure about her rescue, despite her tone. She’d tried to sound sure, but her eyes said she wasn’t. He wondered who this poor little rich girl needed to convince, him or herself. He didn’t comment, though, just warned her. “Don’t try a stunt like that again. Luna won’t let you get away with it. He’d have no problem sending you back dead, and he will if that ransom isn’t paid.”

Her face turned grayer than Lake Michigan in winter.

It was a little easier to feel sorry for her when she wasn’t screaming. He didn’t need any more hysterics, so he figured he’d be better off if he lied to her. At least then they could get through whatever time was left. The more time they had, the more chance there was for escape.

“Look, I’m sure your father will come up with the money. In a few days you’ll be back home. You can go back to Belleview—”

“Belvedere,” she corrected distractedly, continuing to twist her shoe thing.

“Okay, Belvedere. Back to your Peachtree Farm—”

“Beechtree Farms.” She sniffed a bit and rubbed a white finger across her uppity little nose.

“Yeah, whatever. Then you’ll be back at that Hick House.”

She gave him a perturbed look and stated rather loudly,
“Hickory
House.”

“Hick or hickory, what’s the difference? They’re both in the South. Besides, you’ll be the hell home, all right?” What a pain. He wondered why he even tried. Who gave a rat’s ass about any of those homes of hers, especially since she’d play hell ever seeing any of them again.

She squirmed around for a minute or so and finally pulled the gag out from under her butt. She stared at it for a second, raised her head, and looked around the room. She scooted over to the water bucket.

Ah. The flower was going to get a drink. Maybe she was human after all. A gecko scurried out of a dark corner and up his leg. Sam flicked it off. Annoying little buggers. The sound of sloshing water captured his attention, and he looked up.

She was washing with their drinking water.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, shooting upright so he could hobble over there.