It Happened In Paradise

‘Manda.’

‘Excuse me? You’ve decided that I’m a friend?’

‘I’ve decided that I don’t like being called “lady” or Miss Grenville and I never liked Miranda.’

‘Why not?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Please yourself. Shall we get on?’

There was a long pause, then he released her hand. ‘I’m moving to the left.’

She shuffled after him, studiously ignoring a stream of muttered oaths as the floor shook beneath them once more. He turned and caught her before she went down this time, holding her against him, tucking her safe against his shoulder. With her face pressed into his chest, his body protecting her from falling debris, Manda felt ridiculously secure, despite the fact that some vast megalith could at any moment crush the pair of them.

‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ Jago murmured when everything was quiet, continuing to hold her, her face buried in the hollow of his shoulder, her cheek tight against the heavy cotton of his shirt. The beat of his heart a solid base counterpoint to her own rapid pulse rate and in the darkness she clung to him as if to a lover.

She should move but, afraid of more aftershocks, her courage failed her and she couldn’t make herself pull away.

It was Jago who moved first. ‘Keep your eyes closed,’ he said, shaking off the grit and rubble that had fallen on him.

‘Okay, now?’

‘No. Wait…’ He rubbed his hands clean against his shirt then, very gently, laid them over her face, brushing away the dust from her lids and lashes.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ she said, close to tears as she slid her hands into his hair, a thick mop of unruly curls, using her fingers to comb out the small pieces of stone. Sweeping her fingertips across a wide forehead, pausing at an impressive bump.

It was little wonder he had a headache, she thought, wishing she hadn’t been quite so horrible about that, and on an impulse she kneeled up to kiss it better, before sweeping the pads of her fingers over dusty eyelids, bony cheeks, down the length of a firm jaw. Feeling the stubble of a day-old beard. Discovering the landscape of his face, imprinting its contours in her memory.

He grasped her wrist as she rubbed her thumb across his mouth, stopping her, and for a moment they remained locked together, the pad of her thumb against his lower lip. Then, without a word, he dropped her hand, looped his arm about her waist and turned away, moving slowly along the face of the wall, apparently exploring the carvings with the tips of his fingers as he continued to try and make sense of their surroundings.

‘My stuff should be along here,’ he said after a while.

‘Well, let’s get to it,’ she said, feeling as if she’d been holding her breath since that moment when anything might have happened. She made a move forward but he didn’t let go, stopping her. ‘What are we waiting for?’ she asked scratchily. ‘Your pack of matches won’t crawl out all by itself and jump into your hand.’

‘True, but blundering off into the dark isn’t going to help and if we’re not careful we could bring the whole lot down on us.’

‘True. And if we stay here talking about it long enough another aftershock might just save us the job,’ she replied impatiently. His closeness had become too intimate and she tried to tug free. His grip tightened just enough to warn her to keep still.

‘Slow down,’ he said, his arm around her waist immovable, powerful. Controlling. Their brief moment of rapport now history.

‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Despite your little pep talk back there, I do realise that no one is likely to be looking for us any time soon.’

‘Do you? Really?’

‘What’s to understand?’

She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only time would tell whether she had been lucky or unlucky, but one thing was sure, she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for someone to come and dig them out.

‘I’ve seen these things on television, Jago. I know that out there it’ll be total chaos and, until we get any indication to the contrary, we have to assume we’re on our own. The longer we sit around doing nothing, the weaker we’ll get.’ Then, with a surge of excitement. ‘No, wait!’

‘What?’

‘In my bag! I’ve got a cellphone…’

‘Miranda—’

‘If it survived the fall.’

‘And if we could get a signal up here,’ he replied heavily, brutally crushing the wild surge of hope.

‘There’s no signal?’

She felt, rather than saw him shake his head, heard the muttered oath as, too late, he recalled the blow he’d sustained.

‘Are you okay?’ The chances were that he was suffering from concussion at the very least.

‘I’ll live,’ he replied. ‘Is there anything else that might be useful in this bag of yours?’

She suspected he’d asked more to keep her from falling apart again than for any other reason. She wasn’t fooled into thinking that it was personal, that he’d felt anything beyond lust when he’d kissed her. She mustn’t make that mistake ever again.

He’d protected her from falling masonry because, injured, she’d be even more of a liability. Even a speck of dust in her eye could have caused problems and he needed her fit and strong, not a feeble hysteric.

Heaven forbid he should feel obliged to kiss her again.

Heaven help him if he slapped her.

‘Water,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a bottle of water.’ She thought about it. ‘Make that half a bottle of water.’ Right now she would have given anything to have a mouthful of that. ‘Some mints. Pens. Wipes.’ She could really use one of those right now, too. What else? Her journal—no, forget that. ‘A foot spray—’

‘A foot spray?’

‘To cool your feet. When you’ve been walking in hot weather.’

‘Right. So, apart from the water and mints, that would be a “no” then,’ he said, definitely underwhelmed.

Just as well she hadn’t mentioned the deodorant and waterless antiseptic hand wash.

‘No matches, torch, string?’

‘String?’ She very nearly laughed out loud. ‘We’re talking about a designer bag here. An object of desire for which, I’ll have you know, there is a year-long waiting list. Not the pocket of some grubby little boy.’

‘So you’re the kind of woman who spends telephone numbers on a handbag. I hope I’m not meant to be impressed.’

‘It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me—’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said, cutting her off. ‘I’m far more interested in its contents.’

And he was right, damn him…

‘I’ve got one of those little travel sewing kits,’ she offered sarcastically. ‘It has some cotton in it, if you’re looking for an Ariadne solution to finding your way out of this maze of ruins.’ Then, ‘Ruined ruins…’

‘A pick and shovel would be more useful, but I accept that’s too much to expect. I’ll bear the offer of needle and thread in mind, though, in case I’m driven to the point where sewing your mouth shut seems like a good idea.’

‘There are safety pins in the kit for that, always assuming I don’t use them on you first.’

‘Well, now we’ve got all that out of the way, is there anything that might be in the slightest bit of use to us, because I’m not wasting time hunting for it in the unlikely event that my feet get hot.’

‘Wait! There’s a mini-light on my keyring,’ she replied, as she continued to mentally sift through the contents of her bag. ‘It came out of a Christmas cracker, but it’s better than nothing.’

‘A Christmas cracker?’

‘You have a problem with Christmas crackers?’ she demanded.

Last year had been her first ever proper family Christmas. Tinsel, a tree covered with bright ornaments, silly presents stacked beneath it. It had been Daisy’s idea of a good time, but they’d all been seduced by the complete lack of sophistication, the simple joy of a big fat turkey with all the trimmings, the bright red and green crackers for them to pull, the paper hats, silly jokes and plastic gifts.

Her cracker had contained a tiny light for illuminating locks that she’d hung on her silver Tiffany keyring.

‘There’s an attack alarm, too,’ she offered.

‘Did that come out of a cracker, too?’

‘No. That wouldn’t be very festive, would it?’ Then, ‘What about you? I saw some tools in one of the temples when we passed the entrance earlier. Was that this temple?’

‘The upper chamber, yes.’

‘Upper?’ Then they were underground? She didn’t ask. She really didn’t want to think about that. ‘The guide said it was too dangerous to enter.’

‘He was right. I tend to get seriously bad-tempered when heavy-footed tourists tramp all over my work.’

‘Oh. I assumed it was something to do with engineering works.’

‘Engineering?’

‘Making the place safe for people dumb enough to think this was a good way to spend an afternoon?’ Then, when he didn’t bother to answer, ‘Obviously not. So—what? You’re an archaeologist?’

‘Not an archaeologist. The archaeologist. The archaeological director of this site, to be precise.’

‘Oh…’ She frowned. All feminist ideals aside, she had to admit that it sounded rather more likely than that female in the clinging frock raising a sweat wielding a shovel. ‘So who was the woman on the television chat show?’

She felt him stiffen. ‘An opportunist with an agenda,’ he said tightly. Then, ‘I’m sorry. An engineer would undoubtedly be a lot more use to you right now.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Those sinewy arms were clearly used to hard physical work. ‘At least you know your way around, although, since I’m a heavy-footed tourist, maybe I’d better go and hunt for my attack alarm.’

‘Please yourself, but if you think setting it off will bring someone rushing to your rescue—’

‘No.’ And, pressed hard up against him, deprived of sight but with all her other senses working overtime, she said, ‘I seem to be in rather more trouble than I thought.’

‘You have no idea,’ he murmured, his mouth so close to her ear that the stubble on his chin grated against her neck and she could feel his breath against her cheek.

She remembered the feel of his lip against her thumb and it was a struggle to keep from swallowing nervously.

Nerves might be a justifiable reaction under the circumstances, but he’d know it was prompted by her nearness to him, rather than the situation they were in, and that would never do.

Instead, she turned her head so that she was face to face with him in the dark, so close that she could feel the heat of his skin and, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper, she said, ‘Do we have time for this, Jago?’

In the intensity of the silence, she could have sworn she heard the creak of muscle as his face creased into a grin. A grin that she could hear in his voice as he said, ‘Tough little thing, aren’t you?’

And, in spite of everything, she was grinning herself as she said, ‘You have no idea.’

For a moment they knelt in that close circle with every sense intensified by the darkness, aware of each other in ways that only those deprived of sight could ever be.

The slight rise and fall of Jago’s chest, the slow, steady thud of his heartbeat through her palm.

She could almost taste the pulsing heat of his body.

There was an intimacy, an awareness between them that, under different circumstances, would have had them ripping each other’s clothes off.

Or maybe these were exactly the circumstances…

‘Okay,’ Jago said abruptly, leaning back, putting a little distance between them. ‘We need your light, no matter how small it is, and the water. I want you to quarter the floor. Keep low, hands flat on the floor to steady you in case there’s another shock. Watch out for broken glass.’

‘Yes, sir!’ If her knees weren’t so sore, she’d have snapped them to attention. ‘What are you going to be doing in the meantime?’

‘Putting my feet up and waiting for you to get on with it?’ he offered, since they were back to sarcasm city. No doubt it was a lot safer than the alternative. ‘Or maybe I’ll be trying to find a way out. There must be an opening somewhere.’

‘Wouldn’t we be able to see it if there was?’ she asked, in no hurry to let go of her only contact with humanity. To be alone in the darkness.

Or was it letting go of Jago that was the problem? Maddening and gentle, dictatorial and tender by turns, she was becoming perilously attached to the man.

‘This chamber is at a lower level so it may not be obvious, especially if it’s dark outside. The chances are that we’re going to be climbing out, so you’d better be wearing sensible shoes.’

‘Perish the thought.’

‘I hope you’re kidding…’

Of course she was kidding! As if anyone with an atom of sense would go walkabout wearing open-toed sandals in a tropical forest that was undoubtedly infested with all manner of creepy-crawlies.

‘Leave me to worry about my feet,’ she replied. ‘Just get us out of here.’

‘Trust me.’

‘Trust? Trust a man?’ And, suddenly aware of the ridiculous way she was clinging to his hand, she let go. She did not cling… ‘Now you’re really in cloud-cuckoo-land.’

‘Believe me, if I was in the mood to laugh, I’d be in hysterics at the irony of being forced to rely on a woman,’ he assured her without the slightest trace of humour, ‘but in the meantime I suggest we both take a trip with the cuckoos and pool our resources until we get out of here.’

And, as if to make his point, he found her arm, sliding his down it until he reached her own hand, picking it up and wrapping his fingers around it. Reconnecting with her in the darkness.

An unexpected wave of relief swept over her and it was all she could do to stop herself from tightening her grip, holding him close.

‘What do you say, Miranda? Shall we suspend hostilities, save the battle of the sexes for the duration?’

She wanted to ask why he insisted on calling her Miranda. A compromise between Ms Grenville and the ‘friendly’ diminutive, perhaps. Couldn’t he bring himself to be that familiar?

Instead, she said, ‘Sure. Consider it a date.’

‘It’s in my diary,’ he assured her, ‘but right now we need to move.’

‘Yes. Move.’

Having let go once, put on the independent act, Manda found it much harder to prise herself free a second time. That was how it had always been. Pretending once was easy…

He made no attempt to rush her or, impatient, pull away as she slowly prised her fingers free, one at a time. Amazingly, he remained rocklike as she forced herself to peel herself away from the warmth of his body. While she fought the desperate need to throw herself at him as a cold space filled the vacuum where, a moment before, there had been warmth.

Fighting a slide back into the dark sink of desperation, the clinging neediness.

She’d been there and knew how far down it could take her, but it was a tough call. The darkness amplified everything. Not just the tiny sounds, the movements of another person, but the emotion. The fear. And, as she finally let go, mentally casting herself adrift, she sat perfectly still for a moment, taking time to gather herself as Jago moved away from her.

Holding in the scream.

She needed no one. No one…

‘Any time in the next ten seconds will do.’

Jago’s voice came out of the darkness as astringent as the bitter aloes that one especially hated nanny had painted on her fingernails to stop her biting them. She’d chewed them anyway, refusing to submit, suffering the bitterness to spite the woman. Five years old and even then using her body to take control of her world.

The memory was just the wake-up call she needed and, using the wall as her starting point, she began to edge carefully forward on her hands and knees, casting about in wide sweeps, seeking her bag. Distracting herself from the pain in her knees as she shuffled along the broken floor by thinking about Jago.

So he found her response about trusting a man worthy of derision, did he? It had to mean that some woman had done the dirty on him in the past. The sexy creature selling her dumbed-down book on the ancient Cordilleran civilisation? He’d sounded bitter enough when she’d raised the subject.

She stopped herself from leaping to such obvious conclusions.

To the outside world she had no doubt that her trust problems would have looked that simple, too. Dismissed as the result of a couple of disastrous relationships with men who had commitment problems. She’d seen the grow-up-and-get-over-it looks from people who hadn’t a clue.

Nothing was ever that simple.

It wasn’t the men. They were no more than a symptom…

She jumped as loose stones fell in a clatter.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked nervously. What would she do if he wasn’t?

‘Just peachy,’ he replied sarcastically.

Cute. ‘You don’t actually live down here, do you?’ she asked in an effort to keep him talking.

‘No. I’ve gota house down in the village,’ he admitted, ‘but I keep a camp-bed here. I can get a lot more writing done without the constant interruptions.’ His voice seemed to come from miles away. And above her. ‘It’s about fifteen miles back.’

‘Yes, we drove through it.’

She hadn’t given a thought to the villagers. She’d seen them working in their tiny fields as they’d driven by. Small children, staring at the bus. Skinny dogs, chickens, goats…

‘I hope they’re okay down there,’ she said.

‘Me too, even though they’re probably blaming all this on me. Stirring up the old gods. Making them angry.’

‘Is that what you’ve been doing?’

‘Not intentionally. They’ll have to look further afield for those who’ve been taking their name in vain.’

Definitely the blonde, then…

‘They’re not getting excited about the possibility of getting rich off tourism?’ she asked.

‘The younger ones, maybe. The older people don’t want to know.’

‘Oh.’

Manda’s fingers brushed against something on the floor. A bottle. Glass and, amazingly, intact. She opened it, hoping it was water. She sniffed, blinked. ‘I’ve found your hooch,’ she said. ‘The bottle wasn’t broken.’

‘Good. Take care of it.’ His voice came from above her. ‘We’re going to need it.’

She didn’t ask why, afraid that she already knew the answer.

CHAPTER SIX

JAGO’S foot slipped, dislodging more loose rubble that rattled down to the temple floor, eliciting a small, if quickly contained, cry of alarm from his companion.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. The pause was a fraction too long. ‘Miranda!’

‘Y-yes… Sorry. I thought it was another aftershock.’ Then, ‘Can you see anything?’

By ‘anything’ she undoubtedly meant a way out.

‘Not a lot,’ he replied, relief driving his sarcasm.

He was prodding gently, hoping to find a way through, but having to be careful that he didn’t bring the rock ceiling down on top of them. As far as he could tell, however, the far end of the temple where his working supplies were stored was completely blocked off.

Their only escape route appeared to be up through the shaft, always assuming that it hadn’t collapsed. He couldn’t see the sky. And just for a moment he considered what it would have been like to come round, alone in the darkness, not knowing what had happened.

‘I could really do with that light,’ he said. Then, ‘Any chance in the near future, do you think?’ No reply. ‘Miranda?’

‘I’ve found my bag.’

She didn’t sound happy.

‘What’s up?’

‘Everything is soaking.’

‘You can’t expect me to get excited about a ruined bag, no matter how expensive.’

‘No. It’s just… The water bottle split when it fell.’

He just about managed to bite back the expletive that sprang to his lips. It was not good news. ‘If there’s anything left, drink it now,’ he instructed.

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll manage. Just tell me you’ve found the light.’

In the silence that followed, his mind filled in the blanks; a picture of her tilting her head back as she swallowed, the cool, clean water taking the dust from her mouth.

‘What about the damn light, Miranda?’ he demanded in an effort to take his mind off it.

In answer, a tiny glow appeared in the darkness.

A really tiny glow that did no more than light up the tips of ghostly pink fingers, shimmer off the pale curve of her cheek.

She’d said it was small, but he’d been hoping for one of those small but powerful mini-torches. The kind of sterling silver gizmo that came in expensive Christmas crackers. Women who carried designer bags that had a year-long waiting list didn’t buy cheap crackers for their Christmas parties. They bought the kind that contained expensive trinkets for people who had everything. At least they did back in the days when he had been on the guest list.

Maybe she’d gone for some kind of kitsch irony last Christmas because this light must have come out of the budget variety sold in supermarkets, just about powerful enough to illuminate a lock in the dark.

He fought down his disappointment and frustration. This was not her fault. Miranda Grenville had come out on a sightseeing trip, not equipped for a survival weekend.

‘Well, that’s great,’ he said, and hoped he sounded as if he meant it. ‘I thought it might have been ruined.’

He eased himself back down to the temple floor and carefully made his way across to her with the light as his guide.

‘Here,’ she said, handing it to him. It went out. ‘You have to squeeze the sides to make it work.’

‘Very high-tech,’ he observed, then wished he’d kept his mouth shut as she found his wrist, slid her fingers down to his hand and guided it to the bottle she was holding.

‘Here. I saved you some water. Careful, it’s on its side.’ Then, before he could take the drink that he was, admittedly, desperate for, she said, ‘Wait. I’ve got some painkillers in here somewhere. For the bump on your head.’

‘You don’t have faith in the kissing-it-better school of medicine?’ he asked, while she fumbled about in the dark for a pack of aspirin, popped a couple of pills from the plastic casing. It was extraordinary how, deprived of sight, the other senses became amplified. How, just by listening, he could tell exactly what she was doing.

‘Yes. No…’ Then, ‘No one ever kissed me better…’ she placed the pills into his hand, taking back the light so that he had both hands free to swallow them ‘…so I couldn’t say how effective it is. It’s probably wiser to be on the safe side and use the pill popping approach, wouldn’t you think?’

He tossed back the pills, swallowed a mouthful of water. ‘Never?’

‘My family didn’t go in for that kind of kissing.’

‘No?’ His were good at all that stuff. As far as the outside world was concerned, they had been the perfect happy family. ‘It’s all in the mind,’ he said. ‘An illusion. If you believe in it, it works.’

‘And do you?’ she asked. ‘Believe?’

‘If I say yes, will you kiss me again?’

‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’

Jago wished he’d just said yes, but it was too late for that. ‘It got an eight out of ten on the feel-good factor.’

‘Only eight?’ she demanded.

‘You expected a straight ten?’ he asked, clearly amused.

In the darkness Manda blushed crimson. Whatever had she been thinking to get into this conversation? Attempting to recover a little self-respect, she said, ‘Hardly ten. But taking into account the guesswork involved, the dust, maybe eight point…’

But he didn’t wait for her to finish, instead laying his hand against her cheek, brushing his thumb against the edge of her mouth before leaning forward and kissing her back.

Jago’s lips were barely more than a breath against her own—a feather-light touch that breathed life, his own warmth into her. Nine point nine recurring…

While she was still trying to gather herself to say something, anything, he saved her from making a total fool of herself and saying that out loud.

‘You said you had a phone,’ he prompted casually. As if nothing had happened. ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, it’s the kind that takes photographs?’