Captive Heart (16 page)

JoNell heard the door behind her open and close. The air felt suddenly cold and damp. Feeling threatened, she went inside and sought solace in her large, comfortable bed. She had just settled comfortably under a large, white afghan woven of alpaca when the door of the room opened, and in strode Del Toro.

His countenance looked dark and threatening. "I see you had company."

"Company?"

"Yes. Rafael Garcia. Don't deny it. I saw him leaving the house as I was returning from my business meeting."

She shrugged. "Yes, seňor Garcia dropped by for a few minutes."

Del Toro scowled. "I don't want you entertaining men when I am not home. Gossip starts easily in this city. Our servants gossip to other servants, and the next thing there is a full blown scandal."

She raised her chin defiantly. "That is all you are concerned about—the honor of the Del Toro name? You are not interested in whether or not he made love to me?"

The storm clouds in Del Toro's eyes grew darker. "Did he make love to you?"

She met his eyes squarely. "He said he loves me. He wants me to divorce you and marry him."

There was a long, tight silence. Del Toro's eyes were like scalpels probing her gaze. "And what was your answer? Do you love him?"

She shrugged. "That's really no concern of yours, is it? That's my own private matter." She was silent for a moment, then added, "But you need have no fear of a scandal. You and I have a business agreement. You kept your part of the bargain—you ordered the cargo planes from my father and saved his business. I am grateful for that. And I fully intend to keep my end of the agreement. But after the year is up, who knows? Perhaps, after the divorce, I will marry Rafael. You will marry his sister, Consuelo. That would make you my brother-in-law. A relationship," she smiled, "that I would much prefer to the one you and I now have."

Again there was a deadly silence. Del Toro moved away from her to the window and stared moodily at the garden below. "I want you to pack a few things. Tomorrow we will fly to a village in the mountains where I have a copper mine. We will be away two or three days."

JoNell was surprised and pleased. It would be a relief and welcome change of pace to get away from his artificial social world and behind the controls of an airplane again.

"Just take casual wear," he said. "And a warm jacket. It gets quite cool in the mountains in the evenings."

"You do the navigating," she ordered brusquely as they buckled their seat belts in the plane. "You need the practice." She thrust into his hand a sectional map she had marked to show their course. "Are you sure there's a good place to land in this village?"

"There's an airstrip of sorts, primitive, but adequate. I've had chartered planes fly me there many times."

The flight to the village was breathtaking. She was used to the flatlands of southern Florida. Here the mountains rose majestically, the lofty peaks dissolving into mists. And below was the lush green jungle and rain forests. Fortunately, she had ferried some airplanes with her mother to customers living in mountainous regions, so she had learned the tricks of mountain flying. There were treacherous down-drafts swooping through some of the valleys, and it was crucial to fly high enough to avoid becoming their victim. She had to be alert not to let the awesomeness of the peaks fool her into thinking that she was further away from them than she was. Many an airplane had smashed into the side of a mountain from just such an error.

"What was our last checkpoint?" JoNell asked, glancing at the aerial map to see if Del Toro was accurately interpreting the colored squiggles and symbols. He had picked up an amazing amount of navigational skill along with his flying instruction. Most students were required to spend a considerable amount of time attending ground school to labor over details of navigating that Del Toro picked up with ease. Whatever else she felt about him, JoNell had to admit he had a brilliant mind.

"It's that mountain right over there," Del Toro replied to her question about the checkpoint. He nodded toward the peak and matched it up with its replica on the map.

"That means our ground speed is very good," JoNell commented. "That tail wind is pushing us faster than I had anticipated. We ought to be there soon."

The tension Del Toro had displayed during the first lessons had gradually eased until today she had found him almost completely relaxed on take-off.

"I have never really understood why you wanted to learn to fly," JoNell said. "It would be a simple matter for you to hire a pilot to fly you wherever you want to go."

"For a number of personal reasons," he shrugged. His evasive reply whetted her curiosity.

"Learning to fly must be very important to you. You found time for your lessons in spite of your hectic business schedule."

"Yes." His curt reply signaled the end of the conversation. But JoNell's frustration nibbled away at her. In spite of how she despised him, she could not stifle her curiosity. Why? At the moment, she did not know why. But something nagged at her to try and penetrate his exterior shell and get to the real man.

"Do you go to this village often?"

"From time to time," he said noncommittally.

It was obvious he had no intention of allowing himself to be cross-examined, no matter how subtly she approached him. The situation was trying her patience. For some reason, his refusal to be open with her was maddening.

She decided to be direct. "You are deliberately avoiding my question. Why?"

Cold orbs of steely green raked over a pert, fair-skinned face. "You really want to know something about me? Why?"

Why, indeed? Reason told her to let the matter drop. Instead, she persisted. "Why not? Like it or not, I am forced to play the role of your wife for the next year. I find it irritating when you are so darned mysterious. It might make things more comfortable if we knew a little more about each other."

His chuckle had a mocking quality that irritated her more. But he said, "Very well. What do you want to know?"

"First of all, why are we going to this remote village?"

"I told you. Business. I own a copper mine there. I check on all my operations personally from time to time."

"All right. Second, you have never given me a straight answer about why you wanted to take flying lessons when they made you so nervous. I asked you about that on the first lesson, and all you'd tell me was that it was a 'personal matter.' "

"Well, it was a personal matter, though there's no big mystery or secret about it. I really didn't think it mattered that much to you. You see, my parents were killed in a plane crash."

"Oh. I—I'm sorry," she stammered, at a loss to know how to respond.

"It was a long time ago. I was only fifteen. An aunt and uncle finished raising me. I was very young and impressionable. My parents were taken from me so unexpectedly, in the prime of their lives. They had so much to live for. Eventually, I learned to accept that they were gone. But I never got over how they died."

JoNell cleared her throat. Embarrassment over her first glimpse of an unexpected side of Del Toro's nature stilled her tongue. For the first time since she had met him, he seemed genuinely human.

Finally, her tongue came back to life. "No wonder you were so reluctant to have me teach you. You wanted more than just flying lessons. You had a crisis to resolve—a phobia about flying. When you saw what you thought was a mere girl, you couldn't even consider putting yourself in my hands."

"Until you gave me that first plane ride and demonstrated your skill," he chuckled.

"How did you have the nerve to go up with me?"

His gaze became icy, aloof. "You are never to doubt my courage. Jorge Del Toro fears nothing. The 'phobia' I had about flying, as you call it, was a weakness left over from my childhood. I despise weakness in a man. I was determined to conquer the problem by meeting it head-on, and I have."

JoNell decided it was a good place to drop the subject, though she was left with a grudging admiration for his courage. Del Toro was such an enigma. Just when she thought she was beginning to understand him, he showed facets of his character that surprised her.

"There it is," Del Toro exclaimed, pointing to a small cluster of buildings. JoNell glanced at the sectional map, surveyed the ground, and agreed that they had arrived. She circled the small mountain village, eyeing the "landing strip" Del Toro had described.

"That open stretch of meadow you call a landing strip is not very long," she said uneasily.

"With your skill, I didn't think it mattered."

"It matters, all right," she said curtly.

She made a low pass over the open field. A man tending about a dozen llamas looked up and began pointing and shouting. Several other men appeared from a grove of trees and they prodded the slow-moving llamas off to one side of the field.

JoNell made two more passes before the animals were clear of the "runway." She checked the sway of the trees and tall grasses to determine the direction of the wind.

"I don't like the length," she reiterated. "It's so short. We'll be cutting it close."

But Del Toro merely shrugged. "Land," he said.

"Okay; you asked for it." JoNell headed for the stretch of green pasture, coming in lower than normal. The wheels of the plane tickled the top of the tall grass that fringed the bare, flat ground. Once clear of the grass, she cut the throttle completely and pulled back on the stick. The little plane settled down comfortably and touched ground. JoNell braked the plane rapidly, her muscles tense. They ground to a halt just ten feet from the edge of the meadow.

"Beautiful!" Del Toro exclaimed. "I knew you could do it."

She saw tiny beads of perspiration shining on Del Toro's forehead. "You did that on purpose, didn't you—knowing it was a risky landing spot," she fumed. "It wasn't enough for you to learn to fly. You had to test yourself with some kind of danger in an airplane. And you chose me to do it with!"

"I told you, I despise weakness in a man," he said sternly.

At that moment, she didn't know whether to admire him or hit him with a wrench.

Del Toro opened his door and climbed out of the plane. She heard cries of "Del Toro! Seňor Del Toro!" She saw a group of small, dark-skinned men rushing to embrace him. Each man in turn hugged him and patted him on the back—the Latin
abrazo
used by men who liked and respected one another.

JoNell got out of the plane on her side. She heard Del Toro speaking to the men in the dialect of the Indian village. She realized these people were direct descendents of the Incas. They had their own language, quite different from the Spanish of Lima. Then Del Toro took her hand, smiled, and rattled off another round of unintelligible phrases. The men grew respectfully silent. They removed their straw hats and held them in front of them in both hands. Then each man presented himself to JoNell, spoke what must have been his name, and bowed to her.

"You have just been formally introduced as my new wife. Now no man in the village will dare show you anything but the greatest respect. You are safer here than in your own home. So relax."

"I didn't know my nervousness showed," she said with surprise. She was surprised, not because Del Toro showed concern for her feelings, but because he had noticed them at all. Until now, he had not shown that he was capable of discerning another's emotions. She had thought that he focused only on himself and that he was devoid of empathy.

Del Toro led JoNell through the tall grass then down a dusty path that brought them into a small settlement of adobe huts. Windowless, with earthen floors and crude wooden furniture, the huts were nestled close together. There was a sameness about the huts, all built in a rectangular shape with a crude chimney on one side. Naked children chased each other in games of tag. Most of the villagers were quite dark with Oriental facial features that gave some credence to the theory that ice age Asians had migrated to the Western world via a Bering Strait land bridge.

Women came to the doorways to smile and wave. Del Toro bowed to them. "The women here have not heard of 'liberation,'" he said. "They work as their ancestors worked many generations before them. They cook, grind their own corn in stone
metates
for the tortillas, wash their clothes in the river, and seem quite content."

"You'd like for all women to be subjugated like that, wouldn't you?" she said testily.

He merely looked at her and chuckled.

As they continued into the village, JoNell found herself tiring quickly. She began to breathe heavily. Her legs felt wooden.

"Do you want to rest?" Del Toro asked, becoming aware of her condition.

"Yes, thank you," she said a trifle breathlessly.

"It's the high altitude. You have to acclimate yourself gradually."

He led her to the stump of a tree, where she sat down with a sigh. She was startled by a sharp squawk. She saw a flash of bright green and yellow feathers in a nearby tree. "A parrot!" she exclaimed.

"Yes. They are plentiful here on the edge of the jungle."

After a brief rest, she said she was ready to continue. This time they moved at a much slower pace. Behind them, the group of village men still followed. Their ponchos woven of bright red, yellow and black yarn, which hung from their shoulders to their knee-length tan trousers, contrasted sharply with the somber expressions on their dark faces. They shuffled their sandaled feet smoothly along the dusty path.

Scattered among the adobe huts were some thatched roof cottages built of a dark red brick. Del Toro led JoNell to one of the cottages and opened a wooden door.

"This is home," Del Toro said.

"Home?"

"Yes. It's mine. This is where I live when I come to the village."

JoNell entered the cottage while Del Toro remained outside to talk to the group of men who had followed them. Her white sneakers touched the same gray soil they had walked on outside. But inside the cottage, the earth had been swept clean so that the floor was hard and dustless. The structure was one large square room, primitive but very colorful. On one side was a bed made from rough wooden boards. The mattress appeared to be palm leaves topped with straw. An alpaca bedspread of a white and brown pattern covered the straw. A fireplace had been built into the rear wall. Several brick tiers decorated with brightly colored clay pots jutted out from the wall and apparently served as counter tops to prepare food. The seating space was adobe or brick surfaces built along the wall. A table of rough wood was placed before the seats. A wooly llama rug covered the center of the floor. Masks, tapestries depicting large birds and animals and llama rugs hung from the walls.