Wild Orchids (4 page)

"That's better." He held her a moment longer, brutally tight, then slowly, slowly, set her back on her feet. Lora barely had time to enjoy the feel of solid ground beneath her before he was wrenching one arm behind her back, holding it at a painful angle. She cried out, but his grip didn't loosen by so much as a fraction. Grasping her by the nape of her neck, he turned her around and pushed her stumbling back in the direction from which they had come.

"Walk!" he ordered tersely. With him so close behind her, ready to exert punishing persuasion on her already aching arm, she had little choice. She walked.

"Damn it, woman, I ought to strangle you on the spot! I'm bleeding like a stuck pig, and just look at the goddamned car!" He still sounded murderously angry as they approached the VW, which had come to rest against the trunk of a now crazily leaning palm tree. The front end of the vehicle was crushed in the middle like a Pepsi can that had been squeezed by a huge hand. The hood was still latched in the center, but either side of it lifted skyward like wings poised for takeoff. A faint plume of steam rose lazily from the nether parts of the engine; its upward progress was accompanied by a sibilant hissing sound.

"God in heaven!" She could almost hear him gnashing his teeth as he surveyed the carnage.                        .

"Ohhh!" She uttered the small sound involuntarily as he walked up to the car, dragging her with him. The pressure on her arm was excruciatingly painful…

"Please…" She could not help herself. She would beg if she had to.

"Please what?" To her surprise, he had actually stopped and turned to look at her. So what if there was a taunt to his voice? If only he would ease the pressure on her arm!

"Please," she said again, hating herself for sounding so humble but unable to do anything about it. "Please let go of my arm. I won't try to escape again, I swear it."

He laughed, the sound brutal. Lora felt a chill race down her spine. He liked hearing her beg, she thought. And the thought frightened her almost more than anything else that had happened so far on this dreadful day.

"Damn right you won't. Because you know that next time—if there is. a next time—you won't walk away from it with only a bad fright and a sore arm. Next time I'll be playing for keeps. Understand?"

"Y—yes." She would agree to anything if only he would let go of her arm—and not hurt her further…

"Remember what I said."

She groaned as he gave one final upward tug on her imprisoned arm before releasing it. Bringing it forward slowly, she rubbed her aching muscles as she turned to face him. Those obsidian eyes, narrowed and dangerous, fixed hers. Her own eyes dropped nervously away from the blood-smeared face.

"Remember," he said again, menacingly, and she nodded.

Without taking his eyes off her, he opened the driver's door and got into the car, leaving the door open behind him. Lora stood watching him while trying not to meet his eyes. She had read that looking a vicious dog directly in the eyes could provoke an attack, and it was possible that vicious men might react in the same way. As she watched without appearing to, he looked at himself in the rearview mirror, grimaced, picked up his sarape, and used it to mop the blood from his face. Then he wadded the sarape up and threw it into the backseat,glaring at her through the windshield before turning his attention to the car.

The keys were still in the ignition, and Lora watched nervously as he turned them. There was a dry heave from the engine, then a series of grinding groans. Lora paled. If the car would not start, what would happen to her? As far as she could see, his alternatives were these: kill her and try the kidnapping bit again, or let her go and do the same. But he wouldn't let her go; he would be certain that she would immediately go to the police.

A gutteral curse made her look fearfully at him. He was getting out of the car, casting her a killing glare as he did so. He walked around to the trunk, opened it, and rooted around for a moment. As the trunk hid him from her view, it occurred to Lora that now would be a perfect time to run. He thought he had her thoroughly cowed… She remembered his threat of what he would do to her if she tried to escape again. He had meant it… She shivered. Then she thought of what he would probably do to her anyway. She could not wait meekly for her own execution… The sun glinted blindingly off the shiny orange paint on the raised trunk; of her captor, Lora could see only the top of his rough black head. Taking a deep breath, she ran for her life, her gait made unexpectedly awkward by her skinned knees. She ran on regardless. But not along the road, where her recapture would certainly be only a matter of a couple of minutes. This time she ran for the jungle, where she might be able to hide. She would by far rather take her chances with the wild rain forest than with the man who held her prisoner…

The plant life at the edge of the jungle was so dense that it was like running headlong into a wall. Lora threw herself at the intertwined branches and bushes and vines, praying that she would break through. She did, to more of the same.

"Goddamn it!"

The infuriated roar from behind her spurred her on. She clawed and pushed and leaped in an effort to make some headway, but her gains could be measured in inches rather than yards. The undergrowth was so thick… The soft, spongy jungle floor sucked at her feet like quicksand. Lora sank ankle deep every time her foot touched the ground. The leaves brushing her bare arms and legs felt cool and almost slimy. Others had sharp, thorny edges… Birds squawked and took wing as she blundered through the tangled vegetation. She refused to speculate on what besides birds the jungle might house… She could hear him crashing through the forest behind her, and panic gave her added impetus; he would kill her if he caught her, she knew. Bending almost double, she put her arms over her head to protect her face and pushed onward. Even as she did so, she realized that she had done the most foolish thing imaginable in trying to escape again. He would certainly catch her… But she hadn't known the jungle would be so inpenetrable. She had had to try…

Something closed on her hair, jerking her head backward. He had caught her… She screamed, fire engine loud, trying frantically to pull away. Then she saw that her hair was caught on the low-hanging branches of a tree…

"You lying little bitch." The words were gritted right behind her. Lora jerked around, eyes wide with fear, as he pushed through the wall of foliage. She was caught fast, unable to get away because of the snarl of branches in her hair. Clearly he was aware of her predicament, because he moved forward unhurriedly. His face was dark with anger, his black eyes alive with it. A long scratch, from a branch as he chased after her through the jungle no doubt, bisected the bronzed skin of his left cheek from the edge of that fearsome mustache to his earlobe. His mouth was twisted into a nasty smile. As he loomed beside her, Lora cringed.

His hands went beneath the hem of that awful shirt. Horrified, Lora remembered the gun. Would he shoot her now? She whimpered, cringing as far away from him as she could, her hands tearing at her trapped hair futilely while she kept her eyes fixed on his every move. The branch in her hair held firm as she pulled frantically against it. She could feel strands of her hair tearing out of her head…

His hands were moving beneath the edge of the shirt. Then they were in view again, pulling free of the beltloops of his jeans an overlong leather thong that, wrapped twice around his waist, had served him as a belt. Lora sagged with relief. At least it wasn't the gun… Holding the thong in one hand, he reached for her with the other. She shrank away, but he caught her. His fingers bit into the soft bare flesh of her upper arm as he turned her so that her back was to him. Dragging her hands roughly behind her, he used the thong to tie her wrists tightly together behind her back. The leather was soft and supple, but that did not keep it from biting into her skin…

"Please don't hurt me." The soft whimper was hers. She was terrified, shaking with fear as she tried to look over her shoulder to see what he was doing. His hands were in her hair now, untangling it from the branches with little care for the tender scalp to which it was attached. Lora winced at the short, sharp stings of pain. She was very much afraid there was worse to come…

He didn't say a word as he dragged her after him out of the jungle, his fingers biting into her soft upper arm. She stumbled several times, nearly falling, but he pulled her roughly on.

At the edge of the jungle, he turned to look at her. The sun striking those black eyes made them glitter with an unholy light. His mouth was tight beneath the fierce mustache.

"I warned you, lady," he gritted, lifting a hand toward her. Lora cowered, and big tears slowly filled her eyes to run down her cheeks.

"Please," she whispered, hating her own cowardice.
"Please
don't hurt me. I—I—please…"

"Goddamn." His hand dropped as he surveyed her pleading face. The white-hot anger that had so terrified her faded from his eyes, to be replaced by something that very much resembled self-disgust. "Don't cry, lady. I'm not going to hurt you, okay? If you'll just give me a little cooperation. But you've got to understand that I'm on the run for my life. If you put me in a position where it's you or me, well… But if you're smart, you'll be fine. Only no more stunts like this one. I don't need the hassle."

Lora stared at him, still quivering. He was not going to hurt her—if she did as he told her. He said she would be fine… Slowly, the shaking ceased and the flow of tears stopped. He still frightened her, but as she looked up at him some of the sick terror he had engendered in her faded. His voice had been reasonable, his expression irritable rather than murderous. He seemed almost human, in fact…

"Do we have a deal?"

Lora nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He was not going to hurt her. Relief made her lightheaded. She offered no resistance as he led her back to where the car waited.

"Sit," he said, pushing her down next to a stunted palm tree only a few feet from the car. Lora sat, not caring that the sharp, prickly grass jabbed at her through the thin cotton blend of her dress.

Crouching behind her, he untied her wrists, dragged them behind the tree trunk and tied them again, a little looser this time. Then he stood up, looking down at her.

"That's for insurance while I try to fix the mess you made of the car."

He turned to walk back to the still-open car trunk. Lora watched him go, sagging back against the tree in relief. He limped slightly, she noticed, favoring his right knee. She had kicked him in that knee—she hadn't realized that she packed that much of a wallop. Her knees and palms stung a little, a legacy from her leap from the car, but she hardly noticed. She felt lucky just to be alive. She had been so certain he would kill her—but he hadn't. He said he wouldn't hurt her if she did as he said. Could she believe him?

Apparently, there were some tools in the trunk, because he had a small metal box open at his feet and a wrench in his hand as he bent over the hood, which he had managed to raise after some effort. In deference to the blistering heat, he discarded the sleazy shirt, affording her an excellent view of his bare torso. Watching streams of perspiration run down the rippling muscles of his back, Lora thanked heaven that she was tethered in the shade.

He was working with concentrated effort, scowling down at the engine and cursing under his breath as he discarded first one tool and then another, finally returning to the wrench. A sound from back down the highway brought his head swinging around. A car! Lora stiffened with excitement, ready to scream for help as soon as the vehicle's occupants were within hearing distance. Then she looked warily back at her captor. He had sprinted to the passenger's door, opened it, leaned in and straightened again, shutting the door, all before the approaching vehicle—which turned out to be a dusty, battered pickup truck loaded down with skinny Mexican children and squawking chickens—had done much more than come into view.

Turning, he snatched up his shirt from the ground and strode toward her, the limp more pronounced as his movements quickened. Lora froze with renewed fear as she saw that he carried the gun. Scowling at her with an expression that would have silenced a far braver soul than she, he hunkered down beside her. Lora shivered as one long, bare, hard-muscled arm encircled her waist in what must have appeared, to anyone who didn't know better, to be a loving embrace. She could feel the heat and strength of that arm and the dampness of his skin through her dress. He had dropped his shirt in her lap; the hand belonging to the arm around her waist burrowed beneath it. Lora flinched as she felt the hard barrel of the gun press against her stomach.

"Behave yourself," he muttered warningly. Lora nodded.

The approaching truck was almost even with the layby by this time; its driver must have seen them, because it was slowing. The dark-skinned children in back leaned over the rickety wooden slats that fenced in the sides of the truck bed, craning their necks and chattering among themselves as they stared at first the wrecked car resting against the crazily leaning palm tree and then at the couple cuddling so affectionately just a few yards away. The passenger side window was open; a plump, harassed looking Mexican woman whom Lora assumed was the children's mother stuck her head out to call to them.

"Senor! Que pasa?"
The woman sounded as if she didn't much care if they were having trouble.

With a swift glance at the man beside her, Lora frantically weighed her odds if she decided to risk the gun and call for help. Should she? Her captor must have sensed what was in her mind, because he tightened his grip; she felt his body hot and close against her side as the hard nose of the gun prodded deeper into her stomach.

"Smile!" he hissed, his voice deadly. Lora smiled. His closeness was overwhelming. She was aware of him with every nerve of her body; the strength of the muscles that enfolded her against him; the heat that emanated from him like a stove; the smell of sweat; the hardness of his arms and chest; the dampness of his bare skin where it touched her and the prickling of the hairs on his chest against her arm…