The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

welling flood and drenched them all over again. He laughed as he sipped her salty-sweet tears; he could only laugh, because he had no words… Miracles, he supposed, did that to a man.

We have to get out of here.

Oh, he hadn’t forgotten about that. Those words had been hopping around in his mind for a while, now, trying to get his attention. He held them at bay a moment longer, just for one last hungry kiss before he said them out loud, in a growling whisper against her mouth.

Her head moved quickly, urgently with her whispered, “Yes…”

He took her by the shoulders and put her a little distance from him-it was the only way he could think clearly. “The guard,” he said, breathing like a long-distance runner.

“There’s only one…”

“He has an automatic rifle-how many bullets do you think he’d need? No-what we need is some kind of distraction…”

A distraction. Ellie stared at him through a blur. Then she shook her head and furiously brushed away the last of her tears. Keep your wits about you, Rose Ellen. Oh, but it was hard, hard, when her wits and her world had been shaken and turned upside-down.

She sniffed-and smelled… “That cigar you were smoking,” she whispered urgently, clutching at McCall’s arms. “Where is it?”

Startled, he looked at his hands. “I don’t know-”

“I can smell it. You must have dropped it. Never mind-” she caught again at his arms as he turned, looking at the ground around him. “Why were you smoking a cigar anyway? What happened to your cigarettes?”

He made a wry face, then looked mysteriously smug. “All out. Actually, I-”

“Never mind that. What about your lighter? Do you still have your lighter?” It was growing darker-too dark in the sheltered lanai to see her face clearly-but he could hear the excitement in her voice.

Her excitement, her urgency were contagious. McCall’s heart knocked against his ribs as he drew the lighter from his pocket. “Right here.” His hand shook a little as he held it out to her; he was pretty sure he knew where she was headed with this. And it was a crazy idea. Completely crazy…

“You’re going to think I’m nuts…”

“Sister, I don’t think, I know you are.” But he was smiling when he said it, and let her hear it in his voice.

“No, listen-” and he felt her hands again, tightly gripping his arms. “There’s this legend in my family. It goes all the way back to my great-great…I don’t know how many greats…grandmother. Her name was Lucinda Rosewood- my mom’s named after her. Anyway, the story is, she saved herself and her baby from a Sioux raiding party when she set fire to her house and barn and fields and then tied her baby up in her apron and climbed down the well and hid there while the fire burned all the way to the river.”

“But that’s-” McCall began. But she cut him off with a hand pressed across his mouth.

“No, wait-that’s not all. See, my mother remembered that when she was kidnapped and held hostage by the mobsters who were after my father-remember, I told you about that? She was being held in this high-rise office building that was still under construction, and she remembered Great-great-grandmother Lucinda, and so what she did was, she took off her clothes and used them to start a fire, and then she hid behind the ceiling panels while the alarms brought the police and fire fighters to the rescue.”

She waited, holding her breath. McCall seemed to be holding his, too. Cautiously, she took her hand away from his mouth. He still didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you see?” she hissed. “It’s almost like fate. Or Providence or something.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “My Aunt Gwen was always a great believer in Providence…” She tilted her head back and looked at the thatched roof over their heads. “That would do the trick. If we could get it going good…”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Like what?” She caught her breath as a wind gust shook the lanai. “You mean, the storm? The wind-”

“No,” said McCall, “I mean, a place to hide. We haven’t got a well or a ceiling to crawl into.”

Ellie was gazing thoughtfully at the guard, who had apparently tired of standing against the wall and had found himself a seat out of the wind. He was now sitting in the wide-open mouth of the snarling stone beast, with one booted foot propped against an upthrust fang.

“How about that?” she whispered, jerking her head toward the guard.

“Looks to me like it’s taken.”

“No, no-there’s another one here, here on this side-see it? It’s under all those vines.”

“There’s only room for one of us,” McCall said after a moment. “You take it. I think I can get over the wall. If I can get it between me and the guard, I’d have a good chance to make it to the jungle before he gets a clear shot. You wait for your chance when he goes after me, then you do the same.”

“I don’t like the idea of us splitting up,” Ellie said, chewing on her lip. “What if we can’t find each other again?”

He’d already thought of that-and had vowed to himself that in the future there was only one thing that was going to separate him from this crazy woman, and that was a possibility he refused to contemplate. “We’ll meet,” he said. “What about the cages? Think you can find your way back there?

“Oh, yeah.” There was a curious purposefulness in her voice. And no fear at all, just a breathless excitement. “Okay then. You distract the guard. I’ll light the fire.”

“You sure you know how?”

“Hey-” she said, bristling, “I’ll have you know-”

“Oh, wait-let me guess.” Goody Two-Shoes-he should have known. “You were a Girl Scout, right?”

“Well, no, 4-H, actually, but-”

“I thought 4-H was more about raising cows than building campfires.”

“Well, what, then?” She had her hands on her hips, and reminded him more than anything just then of a riled- up hen. “You want me to go chat up the guard?”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. Are you sure you can reach it, though?”

“I can if I climb up on those carved thingies. Just try to keep the guard from looking this way while I’m doing it.”

“Right,” said McCall.

“Okay, then…ready?”

“Give me a minute. I’m thinking-okay, got it.” He caught her by the arms, and before she had time to think about it or prepare herself, his mouth swooped down and caught hers in a swift, hard kiss. And then he left her.

A strange-under the circumstances-little shiver of joy rippled through her, followed by an equally strange sense of calm. She waited, like a veteran runner in the starting blocks-primed, prepared, but without nervousness-and watched McCall stroll to the edge of the lanai, close to where the guard was lounging, bored and smoking a cigarette. He got up, of course, when he saw McCall, and came unhurriedly to meet him, his rifle held at an angle across his chest.

McCall spoke to the guard-evidently something reassuring-and made a jerking motion toward Ellie with his head. The guard laughed and said something to McCall, then made an exaggerated point of turning his back to Ellie. A moment later she heard the tiny but unmistakable screech of a zipper.

Reigning in an impulse to giggle, she picked up her “cue” and stepped into the shadows between the back of the lanai and the Mayan wall, supposedly to answer her own “call of nature.” With McCall’s cigarette lighter clutched tightly in her hand, she felt for hand-and footholds that would lift her high enough to reach the palm- thatched roof of the shelter, at the same time keeping one ear tuned to what was happening with McCall and the guard. What she could hear above the noise of the wind sounded friendly and relaxed enough, punctuated by soft, snickering laughter; masculine camaraderie sounded about the same in any language. The wind shook the lanai and rustled in the palm thatch, masking perfectly any sounds she might have made as she climbed.

There-she was in position. By holding on to the vines with one hand and stretching with the other, she could just reach the edges of the tinder-dry thatch. The time was now. But…what would happen when she clicked the lighter? What if the guard heard it, and caught on to their plan before the roof had a chance to ignite?

Then, as if he’d heard her thoughts, she heard McCall asking in a raised voice for a cigarette and a light.

Braced and balanced with the lighter at the ready, she waited in suspenseful agony, praying she’d be able to