Tempestuous Eden by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online

Craig muttered. “Is that it?”
    “What were you expecting?” Blair asked him, her arm protectively and defensively around the boy.
    Craig merely shook his head, dismissing the subject. He stooped down for his plate and offered the untouched stew to the little boy. “Enjoy it, Miguelito, but don’t tell your compadres, huh? There isn’t any more tonight where this came from.”
    Blair was feeling a pang for having wolfed down her own meal so quickly that she’d had nothing to offer the boy. She was still feeling tingles race down her spine from having watched Craig. She hadn’t heard a thing from the trees—the natives could run through the countryside as quiet as mice—but Craig had been so instantly alert and prepared that it was more chilling than the thought of being secretly observed.
    He had been in ’Nam, he had told her. He most certainly had learned the intricacies of jungle defense there.
    And it was hard to be suspicious of a man who had just turned his own meal over to a hungry waif.
    “What are you going to eat?” she asked Craig in quiet English.
    He shrugged indifferently. The keen light of danger had left his eyes; a subtle mask of amusement replaced it. “I eventually get to go back to the lobster Newburg. Miguelito doesn’t.”
    Yes, but not tonight, Blair thought with a touch of admiring respect. Craig had done the work of a bulldozer during the day. With his physique, there could be little doubt that the kindly act of giving away his food would cause him some serious hunger pangs during the night.
    The child ate voraciously, and when he finished, the look he gave Craig was nothing short of adoring. “Muchas gracias, señor,” he said shyly. “Muchas gracias.”
    “De nada, de nada,” Craig returned a little impatiently. “Now get on home little Miguel, pronto! No more crawling in these bushes; it could be dangerous.”
    The little boy disappeared into the darkness, heading like a fleet-footed deer for the village. Craig and Blair both took their seats beneath the tree again, a little less easily than originally. Blair heard herself in an echo of the question Doc had thrown to her the day before.
    “Do you know something I don’t? Is it dangerous here?”
    “No,” Craig assured her, his yellow eyes blankly innocent. “Last I heard, the new government is fully in power.” That was true, there was no danger to the Hunger Crew. There probably was no danger to Blair. But he had been assigned her protection, and his instincts were highly sharpened. Years in turbulent areas had left him able to detect the lightest change in a breeze, the lifting of a single leaf. “I just worry about kids out alone after dark,” he said with a shrug.
    “He really shouldn’t be out,” Blair murmured. “But I’m glad you gave him the stew. These kids get so little.”
    That bland, innocent look was back in his face. The boy next door. No, not the boy next door. He was still too overwhelming for that. His yellow eyes still perceived too much.
    And being next to him was too disturbing.
    “How about more wine?” he queried with an idle grin. “We do have a few extra bottles, I believe.” He slipped her dented tin cup from her fingers with a gallant flourish. “Allow me, madam.”
    He left her to join the others at the fire and refill their wine “glasses.” As she watched him she heard an easy bantering; he had enchanted the entire crew. And why not? she asked herself dully. He would have been a rare find in a populated, civilized world. Out here he was nothing short of a miracle.
    Bright, powerful, generous, uncomplaining, unshirking. Keen wit. Polite, courteous, and friendly. Breathtaking to look at.
    Was there really such a man as Craig Taylor?
    Oh, yes, he did exist. He was very real, coming back to her with bright, appreciative, sparkling eyes. Ruggedly, tautly, excitingly handsome in the simple tan shirt and tight jeans. He transferred the cups so that he held both in one hand and