Treacherous by Barbara Taylor Bradford Page B

she and Luke were pulled down into the river and pushed out to sea?
    She carefully
wrung the water out of the scarf, shook it and put it around her neck for good
luck. This was an omen. They were alive. She would will it to be true.
    She froze as
she heard the sound of a whistle from upstream. Two long blasts. She looked
back, waiting to hear shouts of joy, or the strange silence that seemed to
accompany death.
    Time stood
still, or so it seemed. She could hear herself breathing. And then it came: the
all clear. Three short blasts. False alarm.
    The search
would continue.

TWENTY
    Fiona
awakened to the smells and sounds of a wood fire crackling in the home-made
stove. But she didn’t open her eyes. If this was a dream she didn’t want to
wake up. She purred and stretched like a cat.
    Luke, naked,
had hung their clothes around the fire to dry. He sat down next to her on the little
cot and adjusted the blankets around her. “Are you cold?” he asked, kissing her
forehead.
    “Are you
crazy?” she grinned. “I’m on fire.”
    He swept her
up into his arms and covered her face, her hair, her ears, her neck with
kisses. “Where have you been all my life?” he asked, abandoning the blankets
and pulling her, also naked, onto his lap.
    She felt
neither shame nor embarrassment. She put her arms around his neck. “I’ve been
waiting for you,” she said. “But, for your information, a dinner date and
flowers would have been a preferable alternative to going over a cliff on a
train.”
    “Just trying
to get your attention,” he said, twisting her hair in his hands.
    “Mission
accomplished.”
    He kissed her.
“Glad to hear it. I can’t offer flowers, but the fishermen who own this place
left the makings of a meal here.”
    He went to the
shelf lining one wall. “I can offer you beans, corned beef hash, tuna, more
beans, condensed milk, Spam, and, yes, more beans. There are some tea bags here,
but I’d have to use water from the river.”
    “I’ve drunk
quite enough of the Delaware, thank you very much.” She spotted something and got
up. From behind a cracker tin she extracted a dusty pint of Jack Daniels, which
she brandished.
    “Now you're
talking,” Luke said.
    “Mr. Thompson,
I have your usual all ready for you,” she said, mimicking the conductor on the
train.
    He accepted
the bottle and took a long swig. “Nectar of the gods. And for the lady?”
    “I’ll have a
little of that nectar,” she said. “I’d sell my sister for one of those Krispy
Kremes right about now.”
    “Didn’t even know
you had a sister.”
    “No, but
Hayley comes close.”
    “For me too.
She’s like the kid sister I never had.”
    “To Hayley,” Fiona
said, raising the bottle and taking another swig.
    “To Hayley,” he
echoed. “For bringing us together.” And he pulled her into an embrace which was
tinged with desire.

TWENTY-ONE
    Hayley,
her heart pumping with joy and hope, raced toward the plume of smoke emanating
from the little hut in the woods. She had seen the tracks soon after she found
the scarf, and had been following them.
    She stopped, and
studied the hollowed-out place in the rocky sand where someone had fallen and
then been half-dragged toward the cabin. It gave her a jolt, but she refused to
let her mind go to that dark place. They were both in that cabin, and they were
both alive and well.
    She hugged
herself, thinking how they’d all laugh about this one day, and the luck that
allowed her to be the one to rescue the two people who meant the most to her on
earth. Next to her jerk of a brother, Mikey, who was dead to her, at least
until tomorrow.
    She walked
quietly up to the hut, slowing her breathing. She didn’t know what kind of
shape they’d be in, but she was ready for any eventuality. Or so she thought. But
she was not ready for what she saw through the window.
    She turned and
ran. Ran hell for leather away from the cabin, away from the pain, the
betrayal. She ran back toward the rest of the