The Wedding Ransom (12 page)

It was enough. Just barely, but enough. With a groan, he pushed away from her and rolled onto his back. Throwing a hand across his brow, he lay gulping air back into his lungs as silence stretched between them.

“No one’s ever done that before.”

“Kissed you?” Of course, calling that a kiss was like calling Texas a little bit of land, but Rafe didn’t know how else to put it.

“Called me Mary. I’ve always been Maggie or Magpie or Mary Margaret. When I was little, Papa Gus called me Snookums. The way you said ‘Mary,’ it sounded so…well…pretty.”

After what just transpired between them, that’s all she had to say? A comment about her name? Rafe cocked open one eye and stared out from beneath his arm.

She lay on her back, a pleased smile on her face, and Rafe didn’t have a clue what to make of her. She was an innocent, yet she wasn’t, both brazen and shy all at the same time. A pirate’s virgin granddaughter.

She fascinated him. She drew him like lemonade on a hot summer day, and after one taste he knew he wanted more than a single sip.

And he’d called her a fool.

He rolled to his feet. Scowling, he paused to yank off first one boot, then the other. He hated to get sand in his shoes. “Listen, Maggie, about this romancing you want.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

Her smile faded and a blush stole across her face. Rafe realized she was embarrassed. Before he could say anything more, she was on her feet, dusting herself off, her spine stiff as a whalebone corset. “Please, just forget about it. I shouldn’t have said…shouldn’t have done…you didn’t want—”

“To stop,” he said flatly. “I didn’t want to stop, Sugar. Believe me.”

Her gaze flicked toward him, then away. Hesitantly, she said, “So why did you?”

“Because I’m afraid of your grandfathers.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dryly. “At least try to make it believable, Malone.”

He grinned. This woman was too strong to stay disconcerted for long. Carrying his boots, he walked toward the lagoon, stopping to retrieve the scrap of Maggie’s dress lying in the sand. At the water’s edge, he dipped one bare foot into the water, swished it clean, then stood on the cloth as he washed his other foot. He used the sleeve of her dress as a towel, then pulled his boots onto his clean feet. “It’s like this, Miss Maggie. Romance is a lot like sand.”

She sputtered a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve had more than a nodding acquaintance with romance in the past, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson or twelve. Think about it. Sand can be soft and pillowy or hard and clingy. It can tickle your toes or cut your feet. It can rub you raw if you’re not careful, and burn you even if you are. Heat it hot enough and you can make a weapon. Glass shards can kill as well as a knife.”

Maggie folded her arms, unknowingly emphasizing the fullness of her breasts beneath her damp costume. Her expression darkened with frustration. “Where are you going with this, Malone?”

He swept her with his gaze, knowing a little frustration of his own, as he continued, “Sometimes, though, a grain of sand finds its way into an oyster, and then do you know what you get? Something so beautiful—something so perfect—it’s coveted all over the world. But it takes a little time to grow a pearl. A person has to be patient. Otherwise that grain of sand has been wasted, and you’d have been better off making glass with it.”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t understand a word you are saying.”

“You know, I’m not certain I do, either. But I have a point to make, and it’s in there somewhere.” Rafe walked over to Maggie and took hold of her hands. “I lived a good share of my youth with Luke’s family, and his mother had a hand in my raising. She put powerful store in manners and in treating ladies with respect. I wasn’t called Gentleman Rafe Malone for nothing, Maggie. I don’t want to hurt you. As much as I’d enjoy doing otherwise, I think it best we take this romancing more slowly.”

He watched her closely as she considered his words, and when she offered a wistful smile, he felt as if a heavy weight had lifted from his shoulders.

“Do you think there’s a chance we’ll find a pearl, Malone?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he replied, giving her hands a squeeze. Rafe leaned toward her, intending only to kiss her cheek, when the unmistakable scrape of a sword being drawn stopped him cold.

“I’ll give ye one sentence to explain this.” Snake MacKenzie stood at the edge of the trees, a hunk of Maggie’s dress clenched in one hand, his cutlass held high in the other.

Rafe winced. “Of course, there’s always the chance we’ll choke on the oyster.”

~~~~~~~~~~

One hour after the
Buccaneer’s Bliss
dropped anchor off the coast of Yucatan the following morning, Maggie trudged single file behind Gus and Rafe and in front of Snake along a questionable path through the jungle, biting her tongue to keep from asking her grandfathers, “Are we there yet?”

If the little island where they’d spent yesterday was Eden, this place was its opposite. The strong breeze that cooled along the shoreline didn’t penetrate the dense inland foliage. The hot, humid atmosphere of the jungle was thick enough to taste; its scent a peculiar mixture of new life and decay.

Living in Texas, Maggie wasn’t new to hot weather, but this wet heat managed to sap the strength right from her bones. Sweat sluiced down her back, plastering her linen shirt against heated skin. Periodically she stopped and lifted a wineskin to her lips, but the tepid water did little to quench her thirst.

Thunder rolled across the land, adding its noise to the clamor of the jungle. Mosquitoes whose size made their Texas cousins look like gnats hummed in Maggie’s ears. From the treetops came the high-pitched howl of monkeys and the drone of cicadas pounding their membrane drums. Maggie wanted to put her hands over her ears and yell at them all to be quiet. She was miserable, but she refused to complain.

She hadn’t spoken to any of the men since yesterday.

They’d acted like children, each one of them. Papa Snake, for charging ahead with that sword raised high, refusing to believe her explanation. Papa Gus, for throwing the punches Rafe didn’t defend against. And Malone himself, curse his hide, for starting the battle by admitting he’d kissed her.

Why couldn’t the man have used a little discretion?
I don’t lie
, he’d told her flatly. Well what kind of moral outlook was that for a thief, for goodness sakes? And for a lawyer, at that? No wonder he’d changed professions.

But the worst part came after the scuffle when the men sat around sharing a smoke and swapping stories of the trouble caused by women in their pasts. The sympathy and understanding each expressed for the others made Maggie want to slap them all. Her mood didn’t improve when the men tried to talk her into waiting aboard the boat while they fetched the treasure.

On their trip into the village, her grandfathers had learned that the fighting in the area between the locals and the government troops had moved south and away from their route to the treasure. With that being the case, Maggie had seen no reason why she should be left behind. They’d argued, three against one, and by the time Papa Snake had served up a delicious turtle stew, she would have dumped it over their heads had it not been so delicious. She’d bedded down for the night nursing a full-blown case of hurt feelings.

Now, faced with the discomforts of the jungle, she wondered if she hadn’t made a mistake.

“Be careful here,” Gus called over his shoulder, stepping cautiously over a fallen seybo tree that blocked the entire path. “Don’t graze the trunk, whatever you do. The sap will eat a man’s skin like acid.”

Rafe took an exaggerated step over the log, then turned back and held out a helping hand first to Maggie and then to Snake. When the pirate hesitated, Rafe casually eyed the rough, scaly bark of the seybo and said, “We grow some nasty things at home, but I’ve never heard of a skin-eating tree. Scares me spitless.”

“If you’re frightened of a tree, best keep an eye out for snakes,” Snake said, accepting Rafe’s assistance over the obstruction. “They grow some down here that make rattlers look like garden snakes.”

Malone knew just what tack to take to ease her papas’ fearsome pride, Maggie realized. She couldn’t deny his kindness where her grandfathers were concerned, and that meant more to Maggie than almost anything. Gentleman Rafe Malone. The name fit him.

They continued their trek along the jungle path and Maggie’s snit began to melt. As if he sensed her feelings, Rafe glanced back at her and winked.

Gentleman
Rake
Malone suited him better, she decided. A small grin lifted her lips at the thought. Along with her smile came a cheering of her heart, and within minutes Maggie’s outlook on the day had changed.

The jungle felt less oppressive and even her steps seemed lighter. She marched for a full quarter hour without once thinking a complaint. Instead of her earlier lethargy, Maggie knew a sense of excitement. Soon they would reach the treasure trove. They were only an hour or two away from securing the means to save Hotel Bliss and solve all their problems.

And on a more immediate scale, it wouldn’t be long now until she took a refreshing swim in the cool, clean water of a cenote.

Although her papas and Malone didn’t know it yet, she intended to join the thief on his cenote swim. Swimming alone was always a dangerous proposition; swimming alone in an underground river was simply stupid. Too much was at stake to take unnecessary risks, and besides, Maggie had heard stories about the underwater world for much of her life. She wasn’t about to squander her opportunity to see its wonder for herself.

“The sopadilla tree is straight ahead,” Snake called up to Gus. “Do you see it?”

“Yep.” The pirate glanced over his shoulder to Rafe. “Time to pull out the machete, son. From here on out we blaze our own trail. It’ll be tough going for a time.”

“Why isn’t there a path? I thought y’all were just down here.”

“We were. But the jungle reclaims its territory fast. That’s one reason this is such a good hiding place for our booty. Almost as soon as we cut our way through, the vines and bushes grow to close our path, concealing it from the casual eye.”

Drawing his own broad-blade machete, Gus studied the sopadilla tree, chose a spot, then whacked his way into the foliage. The going proved hard but not unreasonably slow, and less than fifteen minutes later they reached a towering rock monolith that marked their goal.

“What the hell is that?” Rafe asked, staring up at the leering, fearsome faces carved into the stone.

“The Maya left calling cards like that all across this land,” Snake answered. “That’s how we found our hiding place. Ben has a real interest in the old ruins, and each time we came here he’d drag us off on an expedition of sorts. We linked up with a guide who over time became a friend. He showed us the entrances to find the cave. The back way in—the one you’ll be taking—is marked by carvings like that.”

Rafe gave the images a mock salute. “Glad you warned me. I’d hate to run across one of those unexpectedly. Scare the bejabbers out of a man.”

“There he goes being scared again,” Snake said to Gus, disgust lacing his tone. “I’m beginning to get worried.”

“Don’t be silly, Papa Snake,” Maggie said. “Rafe will do just fine.”

The man in question quirked a brow as if amused or surprised by her show of support. Gus said, “Everyone quiet now. I want you all to listen good and make certain we’re alone.” Lowering his voice, he added, “We’re almost there.”

Finally, Maggie thought.

Once the pirates were assured of their solitude, they led Rafe and Maggie toward a slight rise in the landscape, their machetes hacking away at the incessant web of low scrub. “Careful now,” Gus called. They stood at the top of a rise. The ground sloped steeply downward before leveling out again some thirty feet below them. “It’s tricky to see, and if you don’t watch where you’re going you could stumble into the sinkhole.”

“Sinkhole?” Rafe questioned. “Like the ones we have in the Texas hill country?”

“Yes, in a way. The land has crumbled in, forming a cave around a pool that is fed by the underground river. Follow me and you’ll see. The path is gravelly, though, so footing is precarious. Watch that your feet don’t slide out from under you.”

They climbed down the small hill, assisting one another as needed. Excitement thrummed in Maggie’s veins as the ground leveled out and she gasped with pleasure at first sight of the cenote.

The cave cut into the hill some twenty feet at its widest. Rock formed an arch over a pool of crystal—clear water that disappeared into deep shadows at the back of the cavern. Tropical flowers framed the edges of the arch, an explosion of oranges and reds, purples and yellows. Fruit bats sounded a baleful greeting from their ceiling perch.

Maggie hurriedly descended the rest of the path, halting at the very edge of the cenote, smiling at the majestic beauty of the scene.

“It’s magical,” Rafe said, his eyes alight as he joined her.

“The Maya thought so,” Gus told him, coming up behind. “Similar basins dot the entire Yucatan peninsula. We’re told it’s not unheard of today for an occasional sacrifice to be offered up to the gods from places like this.”

Rafe thumbed his hat back on his head. “Tell me y’all haven’t taken up their religion.”

Snake dropped his pack on the ground. “Not yet, but we damn sure might if you keep sniffing around our Maggie.”

“Papa!” she protested. She didn’t want any strife to mar this moment. She knew the peace would end soon enough as it was. It would end the minute she expressed her intention to accompany Rafe on his swim.

“C’mon, folks,” Gus said. “Daylight’s wasting. I want to go over the map one more time with Malone before we head out for the fissure.”

“I know it by heart,” Rafe said seriously.

“It never hurts to check things out one last time.”

Rafe pulled a dagger from its sheath at his waist. Hunkering down, he began to trace in the dirt. Maggie felt certain he could draw it in his sleep if required. Her grandfathers had gone over the route at least five times a day since they’d left Galveston. Maggie knew it by heart, and she hadn’t been the one the papas constantly had grilled with the facts.