Part 6 (1/2)
He nodded and continued to rummage for agoniz, ii! ling minutes through his duffel bag, withdrawing clothes. Watching him, Tess couldn't help noting his dark, expressive eyes glittered in the soft, lamp ? iil light that east his features in shadowsl-the high, forehead and the aquiline nose.
A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face when he caught her studying him.
”You haven't changed either,” he said quietly.
”T.
”Go on,” she snapped. ake your d.a.m.n show en ? i I'll listen for the phone in ” case Selena calls.
He nodded and started for the bathroom with shaving kit i hand and a fresh s.h.i.+rt thrown carelessly i( over his shoulder. Then he seemed suddenly to change his mind and headed instead for the door where, with (! iil a quick turn of his wrist, he locked the dead bolt wi the key extending from it and withdrew the key andili tucked it into the side pocket of his snug-fittinl ' Tess's heart stopped. She'd planned to slip out of the room the moment he stepped inw the shower. When he turned and gave her a crooked grin, she fought to hide the panic she. felt draining the blood from her face.
”Not that I don't trust you.”
”I told you I'd let you know if Selena called.” She forced her voice steady.
He arched one thick, sardonic brow.
”And I'd like to believe you.
It's just that I always like to cover my. bets.”
She turned on her heel, marched out onto the balcony, plopped down on the chair and waited for the sound of water running.
”The offer's still open. if you want to watch,” he taunted before he closed the bathroom door.
”No thanks,” she shouted.
”I hate reruns.”
She could imagine the wickedly triumphant grin that creased his handsome face, and the string of curses she muttered under her breath would have made a sailor blush.
Chapter Five.
The minute she heard the water running in Tess reached up and unscrewed the light bulb illuminating the balcony, slid her purse strap over her arm, and peered over the railing, a.s.sessing her chances.
Her plan to escape the hotel by drawing on her free-climbing skills had been hastily conceived the ment Reed had chosen, in his patently caveman to make her a prisoner in her own room. It wasn't a plan without risk, but with a bit of luck it might Most people were careful to lock the'rr hotel rooms when they left them, but Tess was betting that mos guests wouldn't concern themselves with the doors that opened out onto a balcony several stories above ground level. It was a bet she was counting heavily upon as she prepared to drop down onto the small green roof of the balcony below her own.
If she couldn't gain access to the third an open balcony door, she'd have to make the again, increasing the risk, not only of being seriously injured, but Of being caught.
If the worst happened and she was forced to make the drop twice, she might well find herself trapped behind a locked sliding door on a first-floor balcony that was still a good twenty feet above the ground.
The graceful concrete archways and walkways' that comprised the resort's mezzanine level would afford anything but a soft. landing but Tess steeled herself for the possibility that she might have to chance that final drop.
But of all of the dreadful scenarios that swarmed through her mind, the worst was the image of the inside of a Grand Cayman jarl. If she was caught breaking into an empty hotel room via the balcony, how would she ever explain? Even worse, if she was caught, what would happen to Selena when she failed to make the rendezvous at the time dictated by the kidnapper?
Tess shrugged' off the possib't/ity of' failure, telling herself that, dressed as she was in dark clothing, she'd be lost in the lengthening shadows of evening should an unsuspecting pa.s.serby happen to glance up.
Not only was the darkness in her favor, but the fact that she was a good climber in excellent physical condition helped to buoy her spirits.
Although her plan of escape was frighteningly risky, she knew she had no other choice. Reed McKenna had seen to-that, she reminded herself bitterly.
Swallowing her fear, Tess took a deep breath and prayed that the first balcony she dropped onto would provide entry to an unoccupied room, which would ultimately give her access to the hallway and escape.
With one last adjustment of her shoulder bag, which contained Selena's ledger, Tess prepared to swing her long legs over the rafting. But just as her foot came up even with the railing she heard voices ing from below. She stood frozen, her heart wildly.
Judging by the sounds of the happy chatter drifting up from the room below hers, a large group of revelers, giddy with West Palm's famous rum punch, had just emerged out onto the balcony through which Tess had hoped to make her escape.
With her mind scampering for another solution, Tess's eyes settled on a small strip of wood trim that ringed the side of the building and b.u.t.ted up against the railing of each balcony on the fourth floor.
Be' fore she lost her nerve or had time to consider the consequences of her hastily revised plan, she eased over the edge of the railing and gingerly transferred. her weight to the small wooden strip.
The thin ledge upon which she balanced was flat, and seemed stable, but it was narrow, no more than eight or ten inches wide.
Leaning into the nubby stucco wall, pressing her weight against the building, Tess prayed for balance and for the narrow ledge to be strong enough to support her one hundred and twenty-something pounds of weight.
Forcing herself to breathe while banis.h.i.+ng one gruesome thought after another, Tess edged along the side of the building like the infamous cat burglars she admired so much in fiction. Cautiously sidestepping, moving first one foot and then the other, her hands searched the stucco for the slightest irregularity or c.h.i.n.k into which her grasping fingers might dig and hold.
”Her purse sc.r.a.ped against the wall, further threatening her precarious balance.
The muscles in her arms and legs screamed with the impossible strain.
Negotiating the treacherous course, Tess was haunted by the horrible memory of her last free-climb up the side of a stark, red sandstone monolith in western Colorado.
Her'mouth went dry remembering the misstep that had spelled disaster that day--a thirty-foot free-fall that had resulted in a shattered ankle. The physical injury had taken months to heal, but the emotional scars of that expedition still lingered.
Despite her injuries, Tess had been the lucky one that day. Another member of the party had died when an unstable ma ncos ledge, some three hundred feet above a stark, boulder-strewn valley floor, had collapsed.
Tess had witnessed the accident that had cla'. lmed the life of her friend Mark.
Sitting am ere ten feet away, with her injured ankle splinted, waiting for the rest of the party to regroup and take her to the hospital, Tess had watched in utl horror as the oust upon which Mark had been standing, crumbled and collapsed.
The tragedy had happened three years ago. In the year before the accident, Tess had dated Mark. Their relations.h.i.+p was exclusive and becoming serious; they had even talked of marriage. Then, before her eyes, he'd been taken.
Just as it seemed all the other people who'd ever mattered to Tess had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from her life forever.
She hadn't been climbing since. In fact, she'd sold her gear and retired the Jeep she'd driven school. Since the accident, ideas of marriage serious dating had been far from her mind.
Without warning, her purse strap s.h.i.+fted and a of adrenaline shot through her syslm, back to her present reality.
Snap out of it, Tess, warned herself as she stopped to regain mental and physical balance. This was no time to panic; no could paralyze.
Paralysis was something she afford while hovering a hundred feet above.
clinging to a skimpy ledge Another few feet and she. would be-rewarded success, Tess told herself. Steady. Steady. Just a more feet.
Cautiously, s'fiently, forcing herself breathe evenly, she edged closer to even from her precarious position on the ledge, pea red to be empty.