Renegade Man (11 page)

“What are you
going to do tomorrow?” Jonah’s deep voice reached her through the darkness.

“Clean up the
mess.”

Jonah grunted.
“SEAL trainees have to go through a mud-pit test. More than half of them drop
out right there. I’d have second thoughts about tomorrow if I were you.”

 “Then the navy
better end their practice of relying solely on male volunteers, because come
sunup, I’m going to be out there wading through that muck.”

“Look,” Jonah
said, and she could hear the grudging respect in his tone, “you can hole up
here until you can come up with something.”

“Well, I can
assure you it’s certainly not going to be another flimsy tent. I intend to find
quarters that are a lot more stampede-proof!”

A long silence,
then: “You’re really going to tough it out?”

“Don’t get your
hopes up, Jonah. I’m not about to give up and leave. I’d never give C. B.
Kingsley that satisfaction. I’m going to file a complaint on him. Not that it
will do any good. He’s always had the sheriff and county commissioner under his
thumb. Besides, it would be impossible to prove the stampede wasn’t a result of
the thunderstorm.”

When she drew a
breath, she heard Jonah snoring. A low rumble like a far-off thunder. Her mouth
twitched. She could picture him, eyes closed and mouth open as he snored with
abandon.

“You always did
want to roam the seven seas, Jonah Jones,” she murmured into the dark. “I hope
you remember what happened to your biblical name¬sake.” She paused, her heart
skipping a beat as she thought of how she would feel if something happened to
him. “And I sure as hell hope you’re careful,” she added softly.

Chapter 7

A
choo!”

“Here. Drink
this.” The rough, masculine voice snapped Rita-lou’s lids open. Jonah, sheathed
in his snug-fitting black wet suit, stood over her, a mug in his hand.

He was so well
built, she thought, almost aggravated. She dragged her gaze from him to focus
undue attention on the act of plumping up her pillow. “What time is it?”

“Five-fifteen.”
The soft half-light of dawn dusted the small cabin with gold. “Here. It’s hot
chocolate.”

She accepted the
mug he handed her, feeling the quickening in her breath at his touch. She
glanced up at him to see if he had noted her involuntary reaction. His eyes had
darkened. She couldn’t explain it, but Robert had never made her feel this way.
With Jonah she felt . . . different. The feelings were new to her, a woman
who’d been married twelve years. “Do you always get up this early?”

“The navy sort
of made it a habit.”

He turned back
to the microwave, presenting her with a view of his muscular derriere, and she
almost choked on the hot chocolate. She struggled to sit up and realized that
the partially unbuttoned shirt was displaying a generous portion of her left
breast. Quickly she clutched the halves of the shirt together, but not before
he had turned to face her again. Her eyes lifted to catch the leaf-green
glitter of his. She watched his gaze roam over her face, her throat, her
breasts and back again, as if he were devouring her with his eyes.

“Since when does
a navy man drink hot chocolate?” she blurted. Anything to ease the sudden
tension in the room. “I thought it was always strong black coffee.”

“Wrong. Didn’t
you know we’re all rum bums?” His grin was roguish, the old grin she recalled
from years past. Except that now that grin initiated a sudden flash of
overwhelming desire, a tingling deep inside her. I happen to hanker for
chocolate in the morning.” He shrugged. “Okay, and noon and nightime, too.”

“So you’re
allowing a woman in your captain’s quarters,” she said. God, how banal could
you get? “I thought that was bad luck or something.”

He grinned again
and nodded toward the pantry. “1 keep a bag of garlic—an old Portuguese
sailor’s good- luck charm.”

“Ohhh, achoo!”

“Here.” He tore
off a sheet from a roll of paper towels, and handed it to her. He folded his
arms and leaned back against the counter. “You know, with that smudge of mud
across your chin and your hair all tangled, you look just like you did when you
were a little girl.”

She swallowed
the hot chocolate, savoring its warmth and wrinkled her nose at him. She wanted
to touch him, to have him touch her. He titillated her senses with the promise
of untold pleasure. Robert had kept her satisfied, but she sensed that Jonah
would keep his woman excited. “I may look like that little girl, but I’m not
her. I outgrew her twenty years ago.”

“And I’m no
longer Silver City’s whipping boy. Once I find that paystreak, I’m gone.”

She canted her
head and asked softly, “Are you warning me, Jonah Jones?”

“Just telling
you not to count on me in your feud with Kingsley. I’m not a team player.”

“I suppose that
explains the renegade side of your character.”

He straightened.
“It explains nothing. It tells you that you can stay here as long as you don’t
get in my way and until I’m ready to move on.” With that, he stalked out of the
camper.

“You’re awfully
good in the galley,” she called as the door banged shut.

The door jerked
open once more, and he thrust in his tawny head. “Don’t clean up anything. I
like it just the way it is!” Then he was gone again.

Her lips
twitched with wry humor, but her good mood faded quickly. She recognized the
demon Jonah was fighting. She had had Grandpops to love her. Jonah had had no
one, not unless you counted an alcoholic father who didn’t know Jonah was
around three-quarters of the time.

Jonah’s
childhood had made him into a solitary, separate man. Even as a child, he would
flee when he felt tempted to open up, to reveal his true self to another. His
face had passed from childhood rebelliousness to teenage arrogance, and now his
usual expression was a statement of quiet confidence, still overlaid with that
hard varnish of self-containment.

With a sigh, she
slipped from between the sheets. The hem of Jonah’s too-large shirt swished
around her knees, reminding her that she had her own runaway emotions to cope
with—emotions that seemed suddenly alien to her. How could just the mere touch
of a man, this particular man, make her go all hot and wet, discharging that
heavy feeling deep, deep, deep inside her?

It wouldn’t do
to get involved with Jonah Jones. For her, too many people had drifted out of
her life: her father, mother and grandfather, Chap, and then her husband. Home,
to her, was happiness. And the last thing Jonah wanted was a home.

She perused the
compact room, fitted with the two bunks, a pantry alcove and a drop-leaf table.
Set into a linoleum-topped counter between the narrow sink and compact
refrigerator was a four-burner stove. With the exception of the dirty clothes
in one corner, everything was in its place. Apparently the navy had civilized
Jonah more than he liked to admit.

Her gaze
alighted on her soggy long johns, lying in a tangle with his dirty jeans and
black briefs. She shuddered at the unpleasant realization that she had nothing
else to wear. Then she caught sight of a pair of navy sweatpants with
drawstring waist.

Why not?

Clad in Jonah’s
shirt, knotted at her waist, and the baggy sweatpants rolled to her ankles, she
looked almost presentable— except for her hair. Borrowing Jonah’s hairbrush,
she tried to whip her matted curls into some semblance of order, but the wavy
mirror on the back of the tiny bathroom door failed to reassure her of any fashionable
success.

She gave up and
left the trailer. Magnum, happy at the sight of his mistress, rose from his
place at the bottom of the stairs and trotted alongside her, his tail whipping
like a police antenna. Every so often she stepped barefoot on a sharp stone or
a prickly pine needle, and she yelped. From the river she could hear the drone
of the dredger. Jonah was hard at work, pursuing his dream.

When she stepped
out of the brush onto the flats, her own dream looked hopeless. Shattered by
what she saw, she stood there for long seconds, unable to move. The destruction
made her physically sick.

The picnic table
was overturned, one bench fractured beyond repair. Cigar boxes littered the
drying mud. The refrigerator was tilted on its side, the door open. Ravens were
pecking at the food spilling out. Her clothing was strewn across the flats like
autumn leaves on a windy day. Above her, mosquitoes buzzed warningly. Her task
appeared monumental. She’d lost a good two weeks of work, and she’d only had
the summer to begin with.

There was
nothing to do but plunge right in. She began with her clothing, washing the
shirts and jeans and underclothing in the creek, then draping them over the
bushes to dry. That would have to do until she could get into town for a visit
to the laundromat. She was relieved to find her field journal unharmed but for
a few mud splotches. Her other personal things—the card tables, refrigerator,
lantern and similar items— she piled in one area, cleaning the mud from them as
she went along. She would move them over to Jonah’s campsite until . . . until
she could find some kind of camper of her own?

Standing in the
midst of the mud-baked flat, she had to admit that she didn’t really want to
live by herself in the wilderness anymore. It wasn’t just the animals and the
lonely nights. She could stay in town, although it would be impractical to
drive back and forth every day.

The truth was
that she liked being in Jonah’s presence. The camper felt sort of like a home.

The real truth
was that he excited her.

Of course, within
the week the town tongues would be wagging.

Was it true? she
wondered.
Are we doomed to repeat our past
?

After the shame
of being labeled her mother’s child, of ending up unwed and pregnant herself,
she had been scrupulously careful in her dealings with the opposite sex.
Waiting tables in Houston, she had received a lot of flirtatious passes and
requests for dates, and she had turned all of them down. For almost five years
she had virtually lived the life of a nun—until Robert Whitehead had come into
the club one evening.

He had been with
a date, and he had been fifteen years older than her twenty years, but that
hadn’t stopped him. He had kept coming back. Even the fact that she had a
four-year-old son hadn’t deterred him. With gentle persistence, he had worn
down her resistance, and a year later she had married him.

Now here she
was, staying in a camper with a man. With Silver City’s ne’er-do-well, no less.
Let them talk, she thought defiantly. She was going to stay until she found her
Renegade Man. That would really give them something to set their tongues
flapping.

Determinedly she
went back to work. The green woolen shirt was hot, and sweat trickled down her
ribs and puddled between her breasts. By the time she had collected the last of
her scattered belongings and cleaned them, the blazing sun was already past its
midpoint and it was the hottest part of the afternoon. The search through the
mire for all the items she had dug up and cataloged could take days. It was
going to be an enormous undertaking.

She would have
to wait until tomorrow before she began that chore. Her confrontation with C.
B. Kingsley would also have to wait until later. She wasn’t about to face him
looking like the street urchin she used to be. And, covered with mud as she was
right now, she looked just that.

With only one
thought in mind—a cooling bath— she trudged back to the river. Her fingernails
were rimmed with mud, and her hair was matted with dust. The dirty feeling set
her teeth on edge. Ahead of her the tops of the willow bushes swished gently,
and she froze. More cattle? Maybe even C. B. Kingsley himself?

Silently Jonah
emerged from the brush. He still wore the wet suit, and he was carrying his
fins slung over his shoulder. His diving mask hung from his neck like a
bandit’s bandana.

With a rush of
relief, her hand went to her throat. “You scared me! Don’t you ever make noise
like a normal person?”

“I’d most likely
be lying dead in the African bush if I did that,” he said dryly. “Stealth is
the name of the game.”

“Then how about
whistling ‘Blow the Man Down’ to let me know you’re coming, like you did at the
springs?”

He cocked a
brow. “How do you know I didn’t whistle it just to let you know I was already
there?”

Her breath
suckad in. “You’d been watching all that time?”

“Something to
think about, isn’t it? But I wasn’t.”

The breath went
out of her in a relieved sigh. “I’m forewarned, then.”

He shifted his
stance so that the fins dangled from the fist planted low at his hip. “Hey,
look, Ritz. I didn’t mean to be so grouchy with you this morning. I’ve been
thinking that maybe you could use the dredger to suck up all those arrowheads
and flints and whatever it is you’ve been digging up. The quarter-inch screen
on the sluice box ought to catch most everything.”