tourists were gathered at the base of the steps, and Nikki realized with a sense of smothered terror that along with the stone staircase was a waterfall.
Her voice stuck in her throat as Cal, who had no idea what the sound of a waterfall would do to her, carried her along beside him, murmuring something about a water tower at the top of the staircase.
Nikki felt her muscles contract as they neared the steps, as she saw the water cascading down two levels of stone beside the steps, and the sound of it was like no other sound to her sensitive ears.
With that sound came another—the sound of a flood raging over the earthen dam on the river. The sound of the water breaking it, bursting through in a foaming muddy wall to overwhelm the small houses nearby where twelve people, sleeping, unaware of the dam break, would never wake up again.
They were almost upon it now; the water was everywhere. She saw the television film of the flooding, the muddy debris, Leda’s open eyes staring up at her...
“No!” she moaned, freezing in place with her eyes mirroring the terror knotted in her stomach.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE TURNED TO HER, catching her by both arms. “You’re pale,” he said gently. “What is it—the crowd?”
“The...waterfall,” she whispered shakenly. “Silly, but I...I can’t stand it. Please, let me go.”
He turned her with one smooth motion and marched her back off to the carriage, where he put her in back and climbed in beside her with the agility of a much younger man, motioning the carriage driver to go ahead.
She felt a big arm go around her shoulders, felt a shoulder under silky fabric against her cheek as he held her quietly, without asking a single question.
They were back in the city before she got her breath again and moved reluctantly away from that comforting arm.
“Which was it, a flood or a hurricane?” he asked shrewdly, studying her face with narrowed eyes.
“A flood,” she replied. “Isn’t it insane? I don’t mind the surf or the beach at all. But if I go near a waterfall or a river, I get sick to my hose.”
“Have you talked about it?” he persisted.
“Only to my uncle,” she said quietly. “He’s edited the paper for fifteen years. Before that he worked on a big city daily as a police reporter. But the job has made him hard. I don’t think he really understood what it did to me.”
“Suppose we go back to the hotel, get into our swimming gear and lie on the beach for a while?” he asked. “And you can tell me all about it.”
Her pale eyes flashed up to his and locked there. “Your conference...”
“Isn’t for several hours yet,” he reminded her. He searched her troubled eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you how dangerous it is to bottle things up inside?”
“I’m...” She stared at the passing businesses, the tall hotels. “I’m not used to talking about myself.”
“Neither am I, but you’ve managed to drag more out of me in two days than most of my associates have in ten years.” He looked as if that amused him greatly, but his eyes were kind. Dark and full of secrets.
She stared straight ahead at his shirt where the buttons were loose, at a patch of bronzed chest and curling dark hairs. “I could use a swim,” she murmured.
“So could I.” He chuckled. “It gets hot out here.”
“Now, that it does,” the driver agreed, glancing back to make sure his passengers were okay. He hadn’t made a remark up until then, but Nikki had sensed concern, and now she saw it in his dark eyes.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Just too much sun, I think.”
“You get used to it,” he replied dryly.
To the sun, yes, she thought, but how about tragedy? Did it ever completely leave? Did the horrible images of it ever fade? She had her doubts.
The beach wasn’t even crowded when they laid their towels and robes down on the loungers under the little thatched roof shelter.
Nikki had bought herself a towel in the hotel shop, and apparently Cal had his own—a tremendously big white one with the initials CRS in one corner. She pondered on those all the way down in the elevator. The initials, oil, investments, all of it, added to his unusual parentage, seemed to ring bells far back in her mind, but she couldn’t make them into a recognizable melody.
She laid her green caftan on the lounger as Cal stripped off his colorful