Man of Passion by Lindsay McKenna Page A

over her domain, to look after it, care for it and all her beings, including the two- leggeds . If Chief Aroka was here, he'd be shouting for joy that that squadron of macaws zoomed over your head at such a low altitude. He'd take that as a sign, a blessing, that the Amazon River goddess is welcoming you to her breast."
    Sighing, Ari closed her eyes. "How wonderful…how absolutely beautiful! That must go in the book. Oh, how I wish my mother could be here…." She opened her eyes and held his dark gaze. "I know she'd have sighed with joy over what you just told me. These are the kinds of stories I want for my book, Rafe ! Please, just keep sharing these legends and myths with me, will you? This is what I've come down here for." She flung her arms open and stepped forward. "The Amazon is so beautiful! So wide. So grand! And how powerful she feels to me!" Whirling around, the wind catching her skirt and lifting it to reveal her slender ankles, Ari laughed. It was a laugh of joy, of surrender to the eternal beauty of the Amazon jungle that now surrounded her. "I'm in love! Truly in love! This all feels so wonderful to me!"
    Rafe stood there, enthralled by her spontaneity, by the sunlight dancing in her wide, luminous eyes and the soft parting of her lips into a smile that made his heart pulse hard in his chest. The wind picked up strands of her hair for a moment, as if she were being caressed by the river goddess herself. He smiled tentatively. Surely this was no act on Ari's part.
    "I see I don't have to worry about you fitting in to our jungle. You're right at home, aren't you?"
    Eagerly, Ari followed him to the rickety wooden dock. "Yes, this is my home. I feel it here, in my heart. I feel this energy, this sense of being alive for the first time in my life, Rafe . I can't explain it, I can only feel it." She gazed lovingly out across the expanse of the mighty Amazon River, which looked smooth and swirling, one moment a muddy color like chocolate milk, the next a clear tea color. Ari could swear she felt the goddess of the river touching her heart, opening it; her chest expanded like sunlight to chase away the dark of the night she'd lived in all her life. She squelched the urge to throw her arms around Rafe's broad shoulders and hug him because she felt so incredibly happy. She didn't think he'd take kindly to such spontaneity.
    When they reached the plank that led from the dock to his houseboat, he put out his hand to her. "Allow me?"
    Automatically, Ari gave him her hand. There was no hesitation on her part, just a sense of that trust he inspired in her. As his strong, callused fingers closed around hers, she breathed in deeply. "I feel like I'm about to board this boat and step into another world!"
    Rafe led her up the plank and onto the worn deck of the houseboat. "You're more right than you know, Ari." He pointed to the cabin. "Down there are your living quarters. The cabby put the luggage there. If you want to change into something more comfortable for our trip downstream, why don't you? I'm going to cast off the lines and get underway." When she saw the disheveled living conditions, he was sure she'd be disappointed. He wondered if she'd wail and cry like Justine had when he'd picked her up at this very dock to take her back to his camp.
    Ari nodded. "Do you mind if I watch you cast off?"
    "No, not at all." He grinned a little. She was like a wide-eyed child who had never seen a boat before.
    "So much for my Manaus visit," he told her as he crossed the plank.
    Stymied, Ari stood there and felt the gentle rocking of the boat beneath her feet. "What do you mean, your ‘ Manaus visit'?"
    Untying the stern, Rafe threw the hemp rope onto the deck. Then he hurried forward and unknotted the bow line. "I come to Manaus in an official capacity for the city, for whom I work, as few times a year as I can get away with." He leaped onto the boat, picked up the boarding plank, placed it on the deck and tied it down. "Most of the