Torrid Nights (9 page)

Mackenna groaned silently, allowing herself to center on the wildly exploding sensations deep within her body. Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of the reverie. “And risk breaking the truck’s axle? No, thanks.”

He stood, helping her to her feet. For a long moment, he kept her hand captive in his own. Squeezing it gently, he murmured, “Thanks for the special moment. I didn’t know such moments were possible, Mackenna.”

The heat of a blush crept up her neck into her face, and she avoided his gaze. Suddenly, inexplicably, Mackenna felt like a flower ready to open at his mere touch; her heart blossomed, spreading soft tendrils of affection toward this man who had for so long remained stubbornly alone on a narrow path through a garden where the sun never shone. It was a dangerous moment for Mackenna as her insides twisted with the intensity of her feelings. He had not kissed her, had barely touched her, and yet she felt like a tender bud yielding to the caress of sunlight. She tried to recover gracefully, but her laughter sounded brittle to her ears. “Even imperfection has its own special beauty, Brock. I’m glad you took time to see the lovely island, the day….”

He slipped his hand beneath her elbow, shortening his tiger-like stride to match her own. “I think I’ve seen another side of you, Mackenna,” he confided huskily. “And I like what I see.”

Mackenna retired early. Perhaps Brock had been right; maybe she was anemic. She made a mental note to request a blood test from the doctor who made weekly visits to the project. As soon as possible, she promised herself, sternly. Yet another voice whispered that she was using her fatigue as an excuse to separate from Brock after dinner. She needed time to be alone, to think, to assimilate the unsettling events of the day. The bath was a pleasurable escape, and she languished a long time in the fragrant orange-spice salts before slipping into a sheer, white nightgown. Because it was late summer with fall creeping in, the nights were growing cooler. As her head hit the pillow, she fell into a sleep that promised complete rest for her worn body.

She awoke suddenly and sat up, listening. The insistent ring of a telephone sounded harshly throughout the large house. Blinking, Mackenna sighed, looking at her watch. It was 5:15, time to get up, anyway. Vaguely, she wondered who would be calling at this hour and frowned, hoping the call was not for her. Pulling her jeans and T-shirt on, she ran a brush through her copper tresses, noting with some satisfaction that the dark circles beneath her eyes seemed to have faded. When had she slept so deeply? It had been over a year, she told herself. She did not linger on the realization that Brock had given her a measure of solace she had not known since Ryan’s death. A light knock sounded at her door, and she walked across the hardwood floor to open it.

“Brock,” she murmured, her surprise apparent in her voice.

He tilted his head, a slow smile spreading across his mouth. “It’s morning, I think. May I come in?”

“Sure.”

Mackenna was suddenly thrown into turmoil. His hair was tousled, as if he had just awakened, and he was unshaven, the shadow of his beard lending a gauntness to his cheeks in the predawn light. Sitting on the edge of her unmade bed, she slipped on the heavy cotton socks that, despite the heat, were necessary beneath the roughout boots. “What’s wrong?” she wanted to know.

Brock stood there, rubbing his forehead. “I’m afraid I’m needed in Hong Kong right away. One of our projects in the city has run into some trouble, and I have to catch the first available flight,” he explained.

Mackenna pulled the roughout boots on, frowning. She didn’t want him to leave! Quickly, she shoved that reaction deep inside her. “Will you miss us?” she asked, forcing a cheerfulness she didn’t feel.

“Yeah. And by the time I’ve been faced with the seriousness of the problem in Hong Kong, I’ll probably wish like hell I was back here, instead.”

She laced up the boots quickly, out of old habit. Standing, she tried to bolster her sagging spirits. It wasn’t fair. He was supposed to stay here four more days. She looked up at him in the morning grayness, warming to the velvet-blue of his eyes as they focused on her. Her pulse leaped electrically as he brought his hand up to trail his fingers down the slope of her cheek and jawline. He frowned, lowering his gaze as he leaned back against the doorjamb, studying her hungrily.

“You realize that the last weeks have been absolutely crazy for me?”

She found her voice only barely. “No.”

“If your ears are burning when I’m gone, it’s because I’m still mulling over in my mind the days we’ve spent together here on Java,” he murmured.

She swallowed the lump that was rising in her throat, wanting to respond to his openness, to the vitality that emanated from him and surrounded her like a heady embrace. “Will you come back soon?” she ventured softly.

He moved from the door, straightening up.

He slid his large hands down her shoulders until he held her arms lightly. “Do you want me to?” he coaxed.

A small ribbon of panic made her voice unnaturally high. “As project manager, I would think you might want to….”

He gave her a little shake. “That’s not the Mackenna I know. What happened to your forthright manner, your unfailing honesty?”

Mackenna’s heart fluttered wildly as he leaned down, capturing her chin in one hand, forcing her head up…up to meet his finely chiseled mouth. Automatically, she closed her eyes, drawn powerfully by her need of him. This moment, this intimacy; it had seemed so long in coming, so poignantly, torturously slow to arrive…. His mouth caressed her lips, touching, exploring; a drop of dew on the flower petal. His arms pulled her close to him, and she flowed against his body as his hands forced her hips closer. A shudder of delicious pleasure rippled through her, leaving her craving more. His mouth pressed insistently against her lips, parting them, demanding entrance into the moistness there. She allowed a moan to reverberate from her throat. The roughness of his skin against her cheek only accented her spiraling senses with each passing second. His breath fanned hotly across her face, and she pressed herself against him, her arms slipping over his broad shoulders and around his neck.

Languorously, Mackenna inhaled his musky male fragrance. She was a mass of melting volcanic rock beneath his calloused, roving hands. Brock’s fingers lingered, molding her against his granite-like form and she sighed softly as his mouth broke contact with her moist, throbbing lips. She raised her lashes with effort and was captured by his flame-blue gaze. His breath was warm against her prickling, heated cheeks, and she could only stare, mesmerized by the powerful, undulating energy that flowed between them. He bent to nuzzle her cheek and then pressed a kiss to her hair. “You smell like orange blossoms,” he murmured thickly. “Your skin feels like warm jade.”

Her heart pounded in response to these seductive words. How long had she dreamed of experiencing this rapture again? Of touching…loving… Mackenna’s eyes widened at the last thought. Loving? Her sharp intake of breath made her pull away from him. A slight frown furrowed his brow.

“Don’t drive yourself into the ground with this project, Mackenna.”

His voice was unsteady, tender with concern. She allowed her arms to drop to her sides as she stood there quietly, her entire body throbbingly awake and clamoring for more of his touch. She cleared her throat, a broken smile flitting across her lips. “And if I do?”

Squeezing her arms one last time, Brock released her. “Then I’ll have to rescue you once I get back. I still owe you one for trying to drown me back at the lake that day.” He gave her a long, searching look. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised. And then he walked quietly out of her bedroom, and out of her life.

The late-November sun beat down relentlessly, forcing another slowdown in work on the nearly completed road. The afternoon sky was abuzz with the hordes of mosquitoes that infested such coastal regions, annoying laborers, drivers and management alike. Exhausted, Mackenna sat on a log, wiping her brow with the back of her darkly tanned arm. Sully stood alongside her, frowning as he watched his bulldozers break noisily through the humid jungle air. Then he turned and dropped a hand on her drooping shoulder.

“Why don’t you go back to your tent for a while, Mac? You look like hell.”

Mackenna straightened her protesting back. For the last week and a half she had felt symptoms of the flu. Her muscles ached, sending her again and again to the aspirin bottle to dull the pain. Now she placed her hand over Sully’s. “I’ll be okay,” she murmured. “It’s just the last big push on this project. I think it’s getting to me.”

Sully snorted. “Yeah. We got the monsoons breathing down our necks. Every time I look at those clouds building in the north, my skin crawls. God, only twenty more miles. Just let us get it done.”

Mackenna rose slowly, trying to ignore the aggravating flashes of achiness in her joints. “I think we’ve done damn well, Sully. We’re ahead of the new schedule Brock and I set. I’m really proud of you and your men. We couldn’t have done it without you mechanics.”

He looked at her closely, his eyes narrowed. “Mac, if you don’t start sleeping at night, you’re going to finish this road six feet under. What’s the matter with you? Been having nightmares about the project? Something’s been interfering with your sleep at night.”

“It’s not the project.”

It’s Brock,
she admitted silently. Her heart twisted at the thought of him. His tall, powerful body; his sky-blue eyes. It had been two months now since he left. Eight weeks! And Mackenna hadn’t heard a single word from him.

She sighed grimly. How could she have fallen so stupidly in love with the man in just three weeks? That was what eighteen-year-old girls did, not seasoned professional women over thirty who were supposed to be in firm control of their lives. What a fool she was!

Absently, Mackenna gave Sully’s arm an affectionate squeeze, then trudged through the swirling dust toward her pickup. Once inside the cab, she threw off her hard hat and ran her fingers across her brow to massage away the burgeoning headache. Sully was right about one thing: sShe wasn’t sleeping much these nights. When Brock left, half her world had been stolen from her, and the rest had seemed to dribble away with each successive day that he failed to make contact.

She closed her eyes, resting her head against the window of the cab, giving in to the exhaustion that gently dulled her senses. Rivulets of sweat coursed down her neck and into her bra. Was she dehydrated? Maybe that was the problem. She was certainly losing water fast. Vaguely she wondered where she’d put her canteen.

Retrieving it from behind her, Mackenna sipped slowly and leaned back against the hot leather seat. Why hadn’t Brock written? Why hadn’t he telegraphed, or sent word through the supply team? Why? Had she frightened him off?

Probably, Mackenna decided morosely. She told her bruised heart that it was better this way. If Brock couldn’t survive the test of time spent apart, if their three weeks together hadn’t been enough to leave an indelible impression on him, as they had on her… Well, then, their relationship wouldn’t have lasted, anyway. Still, she grieved for the loss of something she had hoped and sensed was beautifully right for both of them. And how wrong she had been!

Alone in her tent later that night, Mackenna tried to force herself to concentrate on the blueprints that lay on her makeshift table. A kerosene lantern sputtered nastily, making the light ebb and flow within the confines of the area. She hid her face in her hands, wondering what she was doing in the middle of a jungle fifty miles from the nearest civilized outpost.

Mackenna had heard of engineers getting cabin fever after being in the field for too many years. It manifested itself as a driving need to get back and mingle with their fellow human beings, to ease back into the mundane routines of ordinary life and keep decent hours, sleep in a firm bed, share a relationship… She looked up, staring at the thin tent wall, watching the shadows dance wildly at the whim of the lamp.

Maybe she did have cabin fever. A slow scream was building deep in her gut, ready to rend the night with proof of her pent-up agony. Oh, how she longed to wrench free of all of this and go back to the States or even to Australia. Anywhere, just so long as it offered respite, allowed her to get back in touch with herself as a woman and as a human being. It was becoming too easy to allow the loneliness that went with the profession of field engineering to swallow her up.

Mackenna had wanted and needed that time alone after her husband—her life—had been cruelly torn from her. A sad smile stole across her lips. She could at least thank Brock for instilling in her the desire to return to civilization. To find a relationship. If such a thing could be found…

Sighing, she stood, rolling up the blueprint and stashing it under her flimsy cot. Ryan had reveled in her uniqueness, had valued her independence. But how many men would run frightened from her because of it? She sat on the cot, unlacing her boots and kicking them off. Too many, her aching heart whispered in return. Well, she wouldn’t compromise herself just because she was lonely. That only made things worse in the long run.
Well, Mackenna, you’re just going to have to wait and see. One more month and you’ll be finished. If we beat the monsoon.

She turned off the lamp, and the blackness of the jungle night suddenly surrounded her, lulled her with its familiar sounds: the thrum of the crickets, the incessant buzzing of the mosquitoes trying to penetrate the thick netting and the far-off hooting of an owl. She slid out of her jeans and T-shirt and into light, cotton pajamas. Lying there, one hand beneath her head, Mackenna stared up into the inky blackness of the tent. Lately, there had been a lot of ifs in her life. Some of them concerned the project; others centered on her loneliness and on Brock. As she tried to force herself to sleep, she lingered on the idea of taking a vacation in Sydney. It was a lovely time of year to visit one of her favorite cities.

Her dreams were shattered when, at five o’clock, she was awakened by the pounding of rain against the tent. Disgruntled, she flung back the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Immediately, her bare feet made contact with the water that had seeped between the plywood floor and the canvas tent. Muttering a curse, she fumbled for a match, struck it and lit the lamp.

Squinting in the sudden light, Mackenna stood, hands on her hips. Angrily, she listened to the first of the monsoon rains lashing the sides of her tent. Outside, she could hear the others stirring. Lamps were lit, and some brave soul ran out to roll up the windows on one of the trucks. Chewing on her lower lip, Mackenna quickly dressed. Undoubtedly, it would now take every last ounce of her slim reserve of energy to push the road to completion. “Damn,” she growled, “damn, damn, damn!”