The Wedding Ransom Page 9

  She found the idea intriguing but a little too advanced for the current stage of their relationship.

  Rafe’s hand tightened around her arm. “Maggie St. John, are you inviting me to get naked with you?”

  “No, Malone. I’m inviting you to swim with me. That’s all. I’m wearing a bathing costume beneath my clothes.” She tugged off the dress to reveal a bright orange and green sarong. As she removed the necklace from around her neck, she added, “I wanted to swim and watch the fish, and I thought you’d enjoy the entertainment, too. This lagoon is filled with the prettiest, most brilliant colors I’ve seen in my life.”

  Rafe studied her with a strange look in his eyes. “Prettier than a rainbow over Lake Bliss?”

  Surprised by the question. Maggie paused and thought about it a moment. The colors of life in this Caribbean lagoon were flashy and fast. A rainbow painting the sky at home was bigger, grander. “Nothing is as beautiful as home.”

  “You are, Mary Margaret St. John.”

  The sound of her full name on his lips sent a quiver skidding across her skin. Her head jerked up, and she met his gaze. The heat in his eyes all but knocked her to her knees. Good heavens, what had she started? Maggie trembled as he slowly walked toward her. She was filled with fear and excitement and…need.

  He stopped in front of her and raised his hand, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “This is a dangerous game you are playing, lady. You’ve been inviting me to do more than swim since we left Galveston, and I’m about ready to take you up on the offer.”

  Was it true? Had her actions suggested more than she, in her inexperience, had realized? And if so, how did she feel about it? Did she want to take this beyond flirtation? Was she ready for seduction?

  But before Maggie could make up her mind, Rafe turned and disappeared into the trees. She watched him go and muttered, “Promises, promises.”

  Rafe struck out blindly, not caring where he went as long as it was away from Maggie. Another minute with her—one more glimpse of that scrap of fabric she wore for swimming—and he’d have been on her as fast as small-town gossip.

  As it was, the only thing stopping him was suspicion. What did she want? What was she after? What sort of scheme or scam did she and her pirate papas have in the works?

  Rafe wondered if the treasure actually existed. It could be that this entire trip was an elaborate attempt to trap him into doing something he wouldn’t want to do. What could that be? Shoot, he was game for just about anything as long as it wouldn’t break his promise to Luke.

  His promise to Luke.

  Memories of that awful time during the war slithered over Rafe like a snake, and he picked up his step trying to outrun them. Failing. As he sped through the jungle, thoughts of his half brother Nick Callahan coiled around him. They constricted his chest and hissed in his ear. Broken promises. False accusations. Bloody deaths. Senseless deaths.

  Rafe let out a yell when he broke through the trees onto the beach. He headed straight for the water, stripping down to his skin along the way. He dove into the cool surf and swam with powerful strokes, hoping the salt water and physical exertion would wash away the ugliness of the past and clear his mind to better deal with problems of the present.

  He swam for almost an hour and felt tired but refreshed when he finally dragged himself from the sea. He plopped down on the sand and soaked in the welcome warmth of the Caribbean sun.

  Until the sound of Maggie’s scream chilled him all over again.

  Chapter 6

  Rafe leapt to his feet, pausing only long enough to pull on his pants and boots and pick up his gun. As he raced for the lagoon, a second shriek ripped through the air.

  “Stop it…stop it…oh!”

  Fear rushed like poison through his veins. Please, God, let me get to her in time. Who was attacking her? Cutthroats, soldiers? It didn’t really matter. Whoever it was had bought more trouble than he could imagine when he made Maggie scream.

  At the tree line Rafe paused, his frantic gaze sweeping the area for Maggie. There, a spot of orange. Rafe’s gaze locked on the battle raging before his eyes and shock stopped him cold. She didn’t look hurt; she looked angry. Wet, bedraggled, and, most of all, furious.

  And she was battling a monster for her dress.

  Not a man but a monster. A real monster. Green and scaly, seven feet long and probably thirty pounds or so. It was the ugliest creature Rafe had ever seen. Like an overgrown horned toad, only different. A mouthful of vicious-looking teeth had hold of one end of Maggie’s dress and she had hold of the other. She was growling; the animal remained silent.

  Rafe didn’t know whether to laugh or shoot the lizard. He called out to Maggie, “Is he dangerous?”

  She spared him a glare. “No, but I am. He won’t let go. Pretend he’s a coconut, Malone, and shoot him. We’ll have iguana stew for supper.”

  “No.” Rafe approached the struggling pair, watching Maggie with a mixture of amusement and lust—wearing that wet bathing sarong, she might as well have been naked. He eyed the animal with distaste. He’d heard of iguanas, but this was the first he’d seen. And I thought we grew things big in Texas. “I don’t kill what I don’t eat, and I gave up eating reptiles years ago. Let go, Maggie.”

  “I want my dress back.”

  “Why? It’s not worth wearing. Not anymore.”

  She spat out a stream of sea-creature names and Rafe decided to try out one of the pirate family oaths on his tongue. “Oyster!” he cursed. Then, grinning, he nodded. “You put the right emphasis on it and it works real good.”

  “Put a sponge in it, Malone.” Maggie’s jaw clenched. She planted her feet, inhaled a deep breath, and gave the fabric one furious tug. The ripping seemed to go on forever.

  Maggie fell back onto her behind, her hands clutching her half of a dress split down the middle. The iguana swaggered off into the trees with the other portion.

  “You know,” Rafe drawled, watching the big lizard’s tail swing back and forth. “That fellow’s technique could use some work. I’ve ripped a bodice or two in my day, but only at my lady’s request.”

  Maggie gawked up at him, speechless. Rafe plopped down on the sand beside her, leaned back on his elbows, and waited for her to speak. When she continued to stare at him, he added, “Just for my information—so I can keep my amorous skills up, you understand—what turned you against him to begin with? Was it his looks? Do you prefer a different shade of green, perhaps? You find shorter toes more attractive? Perhaps you prefer beards to dewlaps below your lover’s lips?”

  Maggie made a strangled noise, and Rafe pressed onward. “Or maybe his actions are at fault. Could it be you don’t care to be spat at? Or maybe you didn’t care for that darting business.”

  Rafe demonstrated by whipping his tongue in and out of his mouth.

  That did it. A twinkle kindled in her eyes and laughter bubbled up from inside her. Rafe’s smug grin dissolved into chuckles as he dropped back upon the sand. “That had to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in years.”

  “I must have looked like a fool.”

  He pictured her then—the damp sarong plastered to her curves, the length of her bare legs, the fire in her eyes. “You looked ravishing.”

  In the time it took to say those three words, the laughter between them died, replaced by tension thick and hot and sweet. Rafe slowly lifted his back off the sand until they sat eye to eye, lips to lips. The moment seemed to stretch for hours as she beckoned him closer with those Caribbean blue eyes.

  “They’ll kill me,” Rafe said, his voice rough and low, referring to the pirates. He lifted a hand, brushing a thumb across her cheek.

  She shivered at his touch. “They may try.”

  His mouth slanted in a crooked smile. “What do you want from me, Maggie?”

  “Romance,” she said on a sigh. “I’ve never been romanced. My papas hover over me so. I think you are my chance, Rafe. I’d like you to give me just a little romance.”

&nb
sp; He considered it a moment. He didn’t know how he felt about being Maggie’s “chance,” but he did like the idea of romance. He always had. “I’m good at that.”

  “I thought you might be.”

  He leaned forward, and as her lashes fluttered to her cheeks, he touched her mouth with his. She tasted of salt water, mango, and innocence. Soft and shyly, she returned his kiss, her response both uncertain and encouraging, fueling the slow burn that had been building inside Rafe since their mud bath rendezvous.

  He slid his hand into her silky, molten-gold hair and pulled her closer. Her hands crept around his torso, and she held him tight. At the press of her breasts against his bare chest, a wave of wanting washed over him, and even though he knew better, even though he knew it was a mistake, Rafe took it beyond a kiss.

  He lowered her to the ground and lay beside her. Heat pooled in his groin as he rolled her toward him. Even as she melted against him, he slipped his tongue past the velvet softness of her lips, exploring her intimately, thoroughly. A whimper of need escaped her throat and he captured it, savored the taste of it. Swallowed it to feed the driving ache inside him.

  He craved her bare skin beneath his fingers, beneath his mouth. He yearned to suckle at her breasts. He hungered to bury himself in the sweet honey between her thighs. Breaking their kiss, he stared down into her eyes, past the flecks of blue and green and into her very soul. How he wanted her. Mary Margaret St. John. “Mary,” he breathed.

  A smile hovered at her lips and in her expression, he saw softness and wonder and…innocence. That damned innocence. A little romance. Fool woman didn’t know what she was asking for.

  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.