Elusive Hope (7 page)

“Indeed.”The doctor’s brow wrinkled.“You’ve taken on a leadership role among us. The town needs men like you.”

Hayden crossed his arms over his chest and gazed out the window. He had expected opposition. He had expected frustration, even anger. He hadn’t expected to be cloaked in praise. Especially from the two men he admired most in the world. He cleared his throat. “I appreciate that. I truly do. But there is something I must do.”

“Here in Brazil?” Blake asked.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I must go to Rio to find out.” Hayden silently chastised himself for saying far too much already, but the look of sorrow and concern in his friends’ eyes was chipping away at his wall of resolve. “I cannot tell you any more than that.”

Blake nodded and leaned back on his desk with a sigh. “It will be difficult without you.”

James rubbed the scar angling down the side of his mouth. “Then there’s a chance you will return?”

“A slight chance.” Hayden shrugged. “Time will tell.”

“When are you leaving?” Blake asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“On foot?” James asked.

“Yes, Thiago gave me directions. It shouldn’t take more than five days if I travel quickly.”

“All alone in the jungle?” Blake asked.

“I can take care of myself.”

Blake nodded. “Since you’ll be in Rio, would you inform Mr. Santos that we’ve moved our location a mile west and that once we have planted our crops and started building the town, we will send Thiago back with the exact acreage we intend to purchase as stated on our provisional title?”

“Of course,” Hayden said. He needed to speak to the immigration officer anyway.

Rising, Blake clutched Hayden’s shoulders, his gray eyes pointed and somber. “We will miss you, Hayden. Be safe and God speed.” He released him and sighed heavily.

Thankfully, before Hayden’s eyes grew moist and he embarrassed himself.

“I will pray for you every day, my friend.” James gave a sad smile. “And in particular that you will return to us soon. You always have a home in New Hope.”

Hayden extended his hand to the doctor, but the man drew him into an embrace instead, slapping his back before releasing him and turning away.

Hayden shifted his face from their view. Clearing his throat, he nodded and grunted his thanks to both men before hurrying out the door. He’d never had a home. At least none he remembered with fondness. After his mother had been killed, he’d never had a family either. He’d been a gypsy, a drifter. He should be used to it. Then why was it so hard to leave this silly town?

Brushing aside leaves, Magnolia crept up to two men circling a fire just outside of town. Unable to sleep, she’d left her parents’ hut, thinking some fresh air and listening to anything but her father’s snoring would help settle her nerves. But the distant flicker of flames soon lured her to the outskirts of town. She wouldn’t have ventured any farther except that she could make out Mr. Lewis’s and Thiago’s faces in the firelight. Harmless enough men. And she’d been meaning to speak to Mr. Lewis anyway. The friendly old carpenter, who reminded her of the bumbling overseer on their plantation back home, had a mind that dwarfed the size of his heart. All she had to do was smile and plant a kiss on his bristly cheek and he happily shared whatever spirits he had on his person.

And she sure could use a drink tonight.

So intent on whatever they were doing over the flames, the two men didn’t hear her approach—didn’t hear the leaves rustle or the twig snap beneath her boots. Didn’t even turn until she said, “Whatever are you doing, gentlemen?” The teasing reprimand in her voice sent fear skittering across their faces.

“Oh, mercy me, don’t trouble yourselves. Whatever it is, I won’t tell a soul.” She curled a hand on her hip. “As long as you let me in on it.” Her grin disarmed them, and they both smiled in return.

Mr. Lewis returned his attention to the contraption sitting atop the flames, while Thiago rose to usher her close. “We make rum—Brazilian rum.”

Delight filtered through her. “Oh, I knew I smelled something delicious.” Adjusting her crinoline and multiple petticoats, she lowered herself onto a stump while Mr. Lewis checked a thermometer that was perched inside an iron pot hanging over the fire. Tubes sprang from holes in the container’s sides and ran down to another kettle sitting in a bowl of water off to the side.

The old carpenter looked up, flames flickering over his pudgy face. “It’s a distiller, miss.”

“We distill sugarcane juice,” Thiago added. “Make
pinga
, or rum. Very good.” His handsome eyes sparkled as he took a seat beside her. Tall, lithe, tanned, with dark features, the interpreter’s exotic looks were not without appeal, though he possessed a boyish impetuousness that prevented a more serious look. Besides, he had no wealth nor prominent position in Brazilian society.

“I should have known you’d be up to mischief, Mr. Lewis.” She teased the old carpenter.

He chuckled. “Well, miss, our drinking supplies are rapidly shrinking. So when Thiago, here, informed me he knew how to make this pinga, so famous here in Brazil, what was a man to do?”He winked.

Thiago’s brow wrinkled. “You will not tell anyone.”

“She won’t.” Mr. Lewis answered with a sly smile. “Not if she wants us to share.”

The fire crackled, shooting sparks into the air as the smell of smoke and night-blooming orchids battled for preeminence.

Magnolia placed a finger over her lips. “On my honor, my lips are sealed. Now”—she glanced around—“do you have any of this ping…pinga for sampling?”

“Ah, sim…yes.” Thiago pulled a flask from his shirt pocket. “We made some last week.” He uncorked it and handed it to her.

“Good thing ’cause I only have one more bottle of rum from the ship.” Mr. Lewis scowled. “That is, unless Hayden can bring some back from Rio.”

Hayden? Rio?
Magnolia batted away a bug and took a sip. The pungent liquid stung her tongue, filling her mouth with a spicy orange taste. She coughed and struggled to breathe.“Mercy”—her voice sounded like an old woman’s—“but this is strong.”

Both men chuckled. The buzz of cicadas intensified around them, reminding Magnolia of the odd crackling she’d heard the other night. “But what is this about Hayden and Rio?”

“He leaves tomorrow.” A breeze tossed Thiago’s shoulder-length hair behind him as he stared at the fire. “I tell him best way to walk to Rio from here. I will miss him. We travel jungle together much.”

“Tomorrow?” Magnolia took another sip of pinga, wondering why her heart suddenly cinched in her chest. “Why is he going? For supplies?”

“He say he not happy here. Did not find what he look for.”

“He’s not coming back?”Magnolia felt like she weighed a thousand pounds. She took another drink to ease the pain and was pleased when her mind began to numb.

That numbness, however, did not reach her heart. Not even after several more sips.

Three hours later, with valise stuffed and swung over her shoulder, Magnolia shoved aside the canvas door of Hayden’s hut and entered the dark room. She had never been in a man’s bedchamber before, and her heart did a hard tumble in her chest as she stood there frozen, focusing on the sound of male snoring, seeing nothing but shadows. She hated disturbing his sleep—had paced in front of his hut for hours—but she had no choice. What if he left before she’d had a chance to speak to him? Then she’d be stuck in this bug-infested jungle forever.

Hayden was her last chance.

She took a step toward his cot, the edge of which was visible now in a stream of moonlight drifting through the window. A dove cooed outside and somewhere in the distance a growl rumbled through the jungle, reminding her why she needed this man’s protection on the way to Rio. If only he would agree to take her.

Another step and she could smell him. All musk and man. Not an offensive smell, but a scent that brought delight to her heart, much like the smell of peach pie brought a flood of good memories from her childhood. He stirred and shifted position, his arm landing in the moonlight. His hand—twice the size of hers—bore scrapes and calluses from his work in the fields. She hoped he wouldn’t get the wrong idea upon finding her at his bedside in the middle of the night. But she was desperate. And desperate times called for desperate ways, or measures, or whatever it was they said.

She took another step and knelt beside his cot. His breathing was deep and rough like the man himself, and she wished she could see his face in the shadows. Now, how to wake the sleeping beast? A gentle touch, perhaps. That always worked with her father. She lifted her hand to lay it on his arm.

When his fingers gripped her wrist like iron shackles.

Before she could react, he leapt, flung her onto the cot, flipped her over, and pinned her arms down with his own. Magnolia would have screamed, but she didn’t want to alert anyone. Instead, she struggled against his tight grip. “Get off of me this instant!”

He released her, disappearing into the shadows. A match struck and the flame sped through the air to light a candle, illuminating the petulant fiend.

“Magnolia?” Hayden blinked, trying to clear the sleepy haze from his eyes. “Zooks, Princess, what are you doing sneaking around my hut in the middle of the night?” He’d heard her—and smelled the alcohol on her breath—the moment she’d entered. He hadn’t survived on the street for eight years without learning to sleep with one eye open. Of course, he hadn’t known it was Magnolia. Or a lady, for that matter. Not until he’d tossed her, as light as a feather, onto the cot and felt her soft skin beneath his fingers—heard her quiet sob. Now as she sat up and rubbed her arms where he’d clutched them, guilt assailed him for hurting her.

“I came to speak to you. Why else would I be here?” She fixed him with a pointed gaze that dropped to his bare chest then quickly looked away.

He grinned. “In the middle of the night?” She looked delicious with her flaxen hair tumbling over her shoulders, cheeks flushed pink, and eyes sparking in anger. He licked his lips, wishing she had come here for a tryst, rather than for whatever reason put that scowl on her face.

“I heard you were leaving in the morning.”

“Ah.” He pressed a hand over his heart. “And overcome with sorrow, you came to tell me how much you’re going to miss me.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Pressing down her billowing skirts, she struggled to rise, but instead plopped back hopelessly onto the cot with a growl. Hayden should help her, but he was rather enjoying watching her expression contort into cute little folds with the effort. Finally, she managed to stand. Stuffing strands of hair into their pins, she straightened her posture along with her skirts as if she hadn’t just crawled off a man’s bed. “Now, look what you’ve done to my hair.”

“I’ve done?” Hayden snorted. “You’re lucky that’s
all
I did.” Grabbing a shirt from the back of a chair, he tossed it over his head. “Do you always sneak up, besotted, on men in their beds? Not wise if you wish to keep your virtue, Princess.”

“My name is Mag—” Her eyes speared him. “I am not besotted, and my virtue is none of your affair.”

“And it won’t be as long as you behave like a dissolute minx.”

“Grrrrrr.” She bared her teeth like a she-wolf. “How predictable that a man like you would have no care for a woman’s virtue.”

Hayden closed his eyes, trying to make sense of the woman’s ramblings. An impossible feat, he finally decided. Sinking into a chair, he scrubbed his face with his hands. “What is it you want, Princess? I was rather enjoying my sleep.” Only then did he see her valise lying on the floor with something lacy spilling onto the dirt.

She scrambled to retrieve it, stuffing the item back inside as a pink hue crept up her neck.

“Going on a trip?” he asked.

“Yes. With you.” She lifted her pert nose in the air but then instantly lowered it, frowned, and formed a pout with those luscious lips. “Oh, please say you’ll take me with you to Rio?”

Hayden would have laughed if he hadn’t been so shocked. As it was, all he could do was stare at the candlelight flickering in her blue eyes. He searched those eyes that now looked at him with such innocence and pleading—searched for the shrew that had been there only moments before. But she hid the hellion well. When she wanted something. He raked a hand through his hair. “No.”