'That would probably be the safest move.' Kate bit her lip. 'Despard's men don't know you and Consuello would be a good cover. Just be careful, Julio.'
'Yes, by all means,' Beau said. 'Or Kate will probably be storming the local bastille to get you out.'
'I'll be careful,' Julio promised, touching her cheek with a gentle finger. 'You, too,
Kate's throat felt suddenly tight and aching as she watched him swagger jauntily out of sight.
'He's so young,' she murmured. 'What if something happens to him?'
'You told me yourself that he was older than his years,' Beau said gently. 'He'll be fine, Kate.' He took her hand in his, the firm vital clasp giving comfort and strength and infinite reassurance. 'And if not, I'll help you storm that bastille myself.'
Her smile was a little watery. 'Promise?'
He nodded. 'Promise. Now what will it take to get you to lead me to this house of yours?' He made a face. 'I hope it has bathing facilities. I need to wash this salt water off me. I feet as if I'm going to dry up and blow away any minute.'
'Oh yes, it has bathing facilities,' Kate said happily, her hand unconsciously tightening on his. Such a warm strong hand, it felt so wonderfully protective and affectionate. She started off through the palm grove into the half-light of the rain forest beyond. 'I'll take you there right away.'
'A tree house!' Beau said blankly, his gaze taking in the upper branches of the rain tree they were standing beneath. 'You've got to be kidding.'
Kate shook her head. 'It's really a very practical idea,' she said, her eyes wide and earnest. 'The branches and foliage offer a certain amount of shelter from the sun and the rain and it's very private.' She was dragging a ladder from behind a cluster of nearby bushes and he moved automatically to help her set it against the tree. 'Julio and I built it. It took us about four months, but it was worth all that time.'
'I can tell,' he said gently. Even in the twilight dimness of the rain forest he could see the glowing eagerness in her face and it filled him with a poignant tenderness. Child-woman, vulnerability and strength. 'I can't wait to look inside.'
'It's not very fancy.' Kate was climbing the ladder swiftly and her voice drifted down to him as he started after her. 'It wasn't all that easy to furnish it. We had to use a pulley except for the little pieces we could carry.' She reached the wooden platform and opened the rough wooden door with a little flourish.
'Thank you,' Beau said gravely as he preceded her into the little house.
She followed him quickly. 'Perhaps you'd better let me go first. It's pretty dark in here and I know my way around.' She was fumbling at the natural rattan nightstand. Suddenly a match flickered and he could see that she was lighting an old-fashioned oil lamp. She turned to face him and her eyes widened in surprise. In the cutoff jeans, bare-chested and barefooted, he was a strange wild figure in her familiar little room. Wild and virile and overpoweringly male. 'It's a little close in here,' she said breathlessly. 'I'd better open the shutters.'
'I'll do it.' He was at the large square window beside the door unfastening the tan woven hemp shutters and throwing them wide. 'The whole place smells of flowers.' He turned and suddenly grinned. 'No wonder, you have enough flora in here to fill a florist shop.'
'I love flowers,' she said simply. 'And they grow wild in the rain forest, so I can gather fresh ones every day.' She gazed around in blissful satisfaction. 'They make everything look so lovely.'
The simple furnishings of the room definitely needed that embellishment, she thought. There was no bed, merely a single mattress covered with blue denim on the rough-hewn floor. Other than that, there were two rattan captain's chests against two walls and the small rattan nightstand. But there were blossoms everywhere. Gorgeous coral orchids with creamy centers tumbling out of rattan holders fixed to the unfinished walls. Delicate maiden fern surrounded deep purple violets in a polished black bowl on one of the chests. A tall vase in one corner was filled to overflowing with greenery and strange white blossoms with golden markings. But his eyes were on her, not the furnishings and she was suddenly conscious of that queer breathlessness again. 'I guess it must seem primitive to you,' she said uncertainly.
He shook his head slowly. 'No, it's very beautiful and very, very special,' he said quietly. 'I can see how you'd be proud of it.' His eyes met hers across the room and it was as if she were being wrapped in a velvet intimacy so complete it filled the whole world, 'In a way it's like you. Different and lovely and totally special.' He looked away and his eyes fell on a colorful object on the rattan chest across the room. 'What's that?'
She was glad he'd been distracted. She didn't know if she could have broken the intimate moment herself. She followed his gaze with her own and then smiled eagerly. 'That's my music box.' She ran across the room and knelt by the chest. Her hands lifted the scarlet-and-ivory carousel with loving care and wound the key at the bottom. 'I discovered it in a pawn shop in Port of Spain. Isn't it lovely? A carousel with not only horses but unicorns and centaurs. It was in pretty bad shape when I bought it, but I repainted it and Julio found a man to fix the mechanism.' She set the music box back on the chest and stayed there, her eyes misty with dreams as she watched the carousel turn slowly on its pedestal. 'I've always loved the tune it plays. I tried to find out what it was, but the man in the shop didn't know and neither did Julio and Jeffrey.'
'It's 'Lara's Theme' from
'A beautiful movie taken from a book by Pasternak. I have a copy of the book in my cabin on the
'Thank you. I'd like that.' Her gaze was still fixed dreamily on the carousel. 'You know, I've always wanted to ride a carousel. I was at a carnival in a little village in Nicaragua once, but it didn't have a merry-go-round 'I'll buy you one.'
'What?' She turned to look at him in bewilderment.
'I'll buy you the best damn carousel in the whole world,' he said thickly. 'Hell, I'll buy you an entire amusement park.' He wanted to give her everything she'd never had. The experience, the beauty, the knowledge. He
She laughed uncertainly. 'You're joking,' She rose to her feet. 'For a moment I thought you were serious.'
He opened his lips to speak but quickly closed them again. 'We'll talk about it later,' he said. 'Now where can I get rid of this combination of salt and sweat that's coating me? You promised me a bath.' He looked around with a whimsical smile. 'Somehow I don't think your very special house has a bathroom.'
'There's a spring-fed pool several yards north of here,' she said with a grin. She picked up the carousel and set it carefully on the floor before opening the chest. 'It's a little cold, but very clear.' 'That's where you sunbathe?' There was something in the smoky darkness of his eyes that caused a frisson of heat to tingle through her. 'Yes, that's the place,' she said, quickly reaching into the chest to pull out soap, a large folded terry towel, and shampoo. 'It won't be very warm there now. It's almost dark.' 'You only have one towel.'
Her eyes flew to meet his and what she saw there made the heat in her loins turn molten.
'Well need at least two,' he said with slow deliberation. 'You're all salty too.' His voice dropped to velvet softness. 'But don't worry, I'll wash every grain of it off you personally.' He smiled intimately. 'Very personally.'
She drew a deep breath. 'You want me to go with you?'
'I insist upon it,' he murmured. 'I always did have a lousy sense of direction. I might get lost in the forest and never be heard from again.'
'Then I guess I'd better come along,' she said, reaching for a few more towels
