LITMIR.BIZ

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It was too much for her to analyze right now.

      “I just want to try,” she told him in a husky voice riddled with tears. “For my mom. I don’t know how much you know about me….”

      “Very little,” Rafe said, sorry that he didn’t know more. A lot more. Was this an act? He wasn’t sure if he were judging her because of his jaded past. Rafe found himself wanting to believe her, but he ruthlessly pushed that thought away.

      Her hands fluttered about like bird wings as she continued. “Well…you’ll get used to me. I’m just here to try and give Mom’s dream reality. She was a wonderful artist. Her paintings were bought around the world by orchid fanciers and hobbyists.” Looking down at her long fingers, Ari said, “I don’t have one-tenth the talent she did….”

      Rafe reached over and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder for a brief moment. He hadn’t meant to touch her, but giving her solace felt like the right thing to do. “Where I come from, we say that when you paint or write with passion, from your heart, that’s all that is necessary.” He met and held her wide, tear-filled gaze.

      He was irresistible! Choking back her tears, she whispered, “I like where you come from.”

      “Good.” Still he held her unsure eyes. A part of him didn’t want her to be coming back to camp with him. Yet her seemingly artless innocence was powerful medicine to his wounded heart. He was a loner, Rafe reminded himself bluntly. Someone who had forsaken family dreams and expectations to blaze his own trail. No woman wanted him and the jungle he loved. There never would be such a woman as far as he was concerned. Justine had hated the jungle, the insects and the reptiles. She’d screeched over each little gnat that flew near her head. Shrugging away thoughts of Justine, he asked, “Are you ready to go, señorita?”

      Ari nodded and gripped her purse. “Yes. Scared but ready, Rafe.” His name rolled effortlessly off her tongue. She saw his mouth draw into a one-cornered smile. Again that sense of sunlight pierced through her and she felt unaccountably euphoric, as if lifted out of the morass of her own lingering anxiety and humiliation at stumbling to her hands and knees earlier. Rafe made her feel good. He was the first man to make her feel that. It was a wonderful, unexpected feeling, one that she absorbed like a thirsty sponge.

      “Courage is taking a step at a time through your fear,” he told her. Opening the door for her, he said, “Come, we must get a cab.”

      Ari was taken with his manners. He opened the cab door for her, too, and insisted she get in while he took care of the luggage. She felt overwhelmed by Rafe—his power, his charisma and good looks. When he slid into the seat next to her, he looked at her curiously, as if he were still trying to figure out what species of insect she was. His black brows had been drawn downward since he’d met her. With displeasure? Ari thought so and felt badly. She didn’t want Rafe to feel like he was babysitting her. Perhaps she could show her mettle and tenacity at the camp and not be so much of a hindrance to him.

      “Welcome to Manaus, Ari. It is a city that grew up from the rubber tree plantations earlier in this century. When the norteamericano companies created synthetic rubber, the boomtown here died. It has since resurrected itself mining gems, gold and other precious metals, plus a little tourism.”

      He barely fit into the dark green cab, but his large, masculine presence felt wonderful to her. Their arms and elbows touched in the cramped space, but Ari didn’t mind. When he spoke in Portuguese to the driver, she smiled a little.

      “How many languages do you know? You speak fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese, from what I can tell so far.”

      Rafe folded his large hands between his opened thighs as the cabby took off at high speed from the terminal. “I was raised in a family where knowing many languages was expected,” he told her, meeting and holding her gaze. Now, instead of darkness in the depths of her eyes, he saw something else. Happiness? Perhaps a sense of safety now that she was away from the madding crowds of foreigners? He knew that being in a strange country made most people feel a little more vulnerable.

      “Morgan Trayhern, your boss, sent me your résumé. It’s impressive. I’m so thrilled you’ve got a Ph.D. in biology. And from Stanford. That is really something.”

      He nodded. “My knowledge of biology will help you a great deal in your quest for your orchids, Ari.” As he said her name he realized how much he liked it. He liked saying it, and he was glad she wasn’t a stickler for protocol, that she hadn’t asked him to address her more formally, as they did in South America. She had surprised him in that regard. She wasn’t some arrogant, rich brat with snobbish manners. Instead, she was simply herself. Or was she? Rafe knew time would yield that final answer.

      “It must have been difficult to leave your family to come to the U.S. for your education,” she said.

      “Yes, I had to argue with my father to allow me to come to the States. I’m not sorry I did. I got an excellent education at Stanford.”

      Rafe was so easy to talk to, yet as Ari watched him, she realized that despite his relaxed state, he was keenly alert. She noticed that he watched everything in a casual, yet attentive sort of way. She felt an edginess within him, too. What was that all about? Was he disappointed with her? With the fact that she was such a klutz and a loser? That she was a woman he’d have to babysit? Determined to find out over time, Ari tried instead to focus on the joy bubbling in her heart as the cab sped rapidly onto a massive freeway. The tall buildings of Manaus were in the distance, the airport behind them. Ahead, she caught glimpses of a dark, tea-brown river. Was that the Amazon? Her pulse quickened. She was really here. She was on her mother’s journey, the one they’d planned in such detail the last year she’d lived. Clasping her hands, Ari closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a wobbly smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

      Rafe felt Ari retreating within herself when she clasped her hands, sighed and closed her eyes. The flush in her cheeks had subsided and he noticed the porcelainlike quality to her skin. Blue veins were faintly visible beneath her eyes. She wore absolutely no makeup. It would be hopeless where they were going, anyway, with the rains and humidity. It made him feel good that she was so natural. Women who had to paint their faces into a mask were not their true selves, and Rafe admired Ari for her unspoken stand on the issue. Justine had insisted upon wearing makeup when she’d visited his camp. It had run and spotted, yet she was miserable without it. Why? Rafe would never understand why a woman couldn’t be happy with her natural state, just as nature was with her bounty.

      He saw that Ari wore simple gold hoops through her dainty earlobes. Around her neck was a fine gold chain holding an oval amethyst, to complement the skirt and sweater she wore. Everything about Ari spoke of delicacy.

      Was she a hothouse flower? he mused. More than likely. Women with degrees from Georgetown University, who lived in Washington, D.C., were not equipped for jungle living. Would she be able to bear a life of hardship, without many amenities? Rafe doubted it. Justine had cried every morning because there wasn’t electricity for her hair dryer. Would Ari see the jungle as her friend or her enemy? Probably an enemy, as his ex-fiancée had. Justine had been afraid to walk to the village with him, for fear of a snake biting her or some big bug whizzing by her head. Morgan had said Ari would be with him three to six months, depending upon how her sketches for the book came along. Rafe hoped it was a much shorter duration. Yet Ari intrigued him. So shy, yet with that childlike look of joy and anticipation written across her features. She was twenty-five, but she reminded him of a gawky fourteen-year-old who was just finding out who she was, just tapping into her femininity. He had no idea where his feelings and instincts about her came from; he’d lived so long on his instincts out in the jungle that he no longer tried to explain his sense of intuition about people. And he was rarely wrong about such perceptions because, over the years, his life had depended upon it. The one time he’d been wrong had been with Justine but she’d been a master of artful disguise and manipulation.

      As the cab screeched to a halt some twenty minutes later, Ari looked out the window in anticipation. There was a huge river, at least a mile wide, spread out before her. Wobbly, poorly kept wooden docks jutted out from the raised, red dirt bank like dark dominos in the water.

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