Page 249 of Storm over the Caribbean
Suddenly, ice filled my veins. Someone else was here! Here with my wife! And it sounded as if she was in his power. How long had it been since I had fallen unconscious? Days? What had he done to her? When I got my hands on that son of a bitch—
“Woof!”
—on second thought, this kind of son of a bitch may be acceptable.
“No, Ican’tgo to the store and purchase dog food, Fence.”
With excruciating effort, I parted my lips.
“W-who’s Fence?”
Although I already had a pretty good idea. That didnotmean I wasn’t still going to make sure, however.
She froze.
Slowly—far too slowly, in my opinion—she lifted the head that had been buried in her hands and met my eyes. For a moment, I sank into those pools of warm chocolate, unable to resist. She was here. She was still alive. We both were.
“Mr Ambrose!” A shout pulled me from my deplorable daze. “You’re awake!”
And not dead from poisoning yourself. Barely.
She didn’t say it out loud. But the truth was there in her big, wide, desperate eyes. Just like the deeper truth was inside the rock in my chest that I called a heart:For you, it was worth it. And I would do it all over again.
Leaping to her feet, she dashed towards me, arms extended.
“Do. Not. Run!” I ordered, glaring at the foolish woman! What did she have to go through during the time I was unconscious? How did she survive? I would not let anything like that happen ever again! “You’re preg—”
That was about all I managed to say before I was hit by a wife-shaped cannonball and two arms wrapped around me tightly enough to strangle me.
“Too…tight!” I managed to squeeze out. Was this how I was going to die? Squeezed to death in my wife’s embrace on a Caribbean island? And here I had always hoped to die peacefully in bed at the ripe age of ninety-nine, surrounded by my safes and cheque books. “Can’t…breathe…”
“And?” She loosened her grip ever so slightly. I was about to take a breath of relief when a hand smacked the back of my head. A pair of brown eyes, no longer gentle and warm, sent me quite the impressive death-glare.
Ah, so she learned a thing or two from me over the years.
“I should worry about thatwhy, exactly?” she demanded. “Didn’t seem like you particularly cared if you lived or died when youate that bloody poisoned fruit!”
Women. Always getting overly emotional.
“It was a valid tactical decision at the time,” I pointed out.
“Oh, it was, was it?” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “So, what would you say to me making such avalid tactical decisionnext time?”
On the outside, I managed to remain perfectly calm and composed. But inside…apocalypses were less cataclysmic than the rage that flared to life within me at the idea of my spouse harming herself just to…to…
To protect the one who is most important to her in the world?
Oh.
Slowly, understanding dawned. I opened my mouth to tell her it was different, that I was the man of the house and that it was my job to take care of her—then closed it again as I met her wide, vulnerable eyes.
Tarnation.
She had me. That sneaky little…
I took a deep breath.
Calm. Stay calm. Your wife gallivanted around a wild island full of predators, nearly dying of thirst and hunger, and now is suggesting to eat poison. A trivial matter. Not important. No need to get angry.
