Morgan's Rescue by Lindsay McKenna

Author:Lindsay McKenna [McKenna, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, General, Undercover Operations, American Fiction
ISBN: 9780373239986
Publisher: Silhouette Books
Published: 1995-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Culver prodded the small fire with a twig. Near dusk, they'd made a lean-to of huge, thick palm leaves. He'd dug a deep hole, and Pilar had started a fire. Luckily, a snake had slithered across their path earlier, and he'd killed it, so chunks of meat were now roasting in the flickering flames, slowly turned by Pilar. The two of them had been soaked to the skin by the thunderstorm, and though the rain had long since stopped, Culver knew their clothes would never completely dry in the perpetually high humidity.

They sat close together, as the lean-to's tiny dimensions dictated. After adding a few more still-damp twigs to the fire, Culver glanced at Pilar. Her hair was in mild disarray about her face, framing her haunting, jaguar's eyes—eyes that had communicated to the depths of his soul with just one look. The taste of her kiss still lingered hotly in his memory. Her cheeks were high with color, and he sensed she hadn't forgotten it, either.

Darkness was falling. Culver watched as the thin smoke rose and caught in the palm-leaf roof above them, swirling and separating until only slight wisps escaped the shelter. No one should be able to detect their presence—at least for tonight. Tomorrow, Culver knew grimly, was another situation altogether. Tomorrow, by nightfall, they would reach Ramirez's fortress. With every mile closer, the danger to them increased exponentially.

"Did you ever marry?" Pilar asked softly. She looked up from the skewer of meat she held over the fire. Culver's eyes sharpened on her, his expression quizzical, and she realized he probably hadn't expected her to ask personal questions of him. Yet, to salve her own conscience, she needed to know. If she died, she wanted to know what had happened to Culver in these intervening years.

He gave a one-shouldered shrug and prodded the fire with a stick. "No. You married," he added, his voice flat, filled with resentment.

"Yes, I married Fernando."

"Were you…happy?"

Unable to bear his burning gaze, Pilar looked down at the fire, continuing to slowly turn the meat. "Fernando was a dear friend," she whispered tremulously. "He…was generous."

"Rich?" Culver didn't mean for his voice to sound hard. He wanted to know of Pilar's past. He saw how his spat-out query had struck her. She winced, unable to look up at him.

"Yes, Fernando was rich." With obvious effort, she lifted her chin and eventually met his gaze. "He was rich from the heart, too, and that was why—well, why I agreed to marry him."

It wasn't unusual in this culture, Culver knew, for an old man to take a young wife. He was sure Fernando had been more than satisfied in the bargain. Too, marriages here were often arranged, though he had a hard time picturing that for Pilar, with her independence. His mouth compressing, he asked, "Was Fernando a friend of your father's?"

"Yes, he worked at the Spanish consulate as assistant to my father. They were the closest of friends."

"I see." So it had been an arranged marriage.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.