The Other Half of Your Heart Page 19

  “What on earth?” Marlene muttered, a frown creasing her brows.

  The picnic noise faded to a curious murmur as everyone stopped and turned to look.

  The rotors still turned, but the door opened and a man climbed out.

  Cara’s hands began to shake. Lina’s rich cheese sticks started to slip off the plate one by one to bounce unnoticed on the grass.

  A thin, wiry man, leaning heavily on a cane.

  “That show-off!” Now Marlene was angry. “What does he think he’s doing?”

  Cara was off the porch and running headlong across the grass before the forgotten plate could hit the ground. It was as if she were flying; her feet didn’t seem to touch the grass. Then, a scant three feet away from him, she stopped dead as if suddenly rooted to the spot.

  What if he didn’t feel as she did?

  What if he had been brought here against his will?

  He was hurt; maybe it would pain him to touch him.

  Maybe he didn’t want her as she wanted him.

  He looked terrible. The clothes he was wearing were too large, but even so, it was obvious he had lost weight he could ill afford. His face was gaunt, his eyes dark with remembered pain. With one arm, he leaned heavily on the rough cane.

  “Cara?” he asked hesitantly and with only a little trepidation held out his hand.

  It was all Cara needed. Relief flooded through her body and flooded out of her face like light from Heaven itself. She flung herself forward, stopping only in time to keep from knocking him over.

  He might have been weakened, but he grabbed Cara and pulled her tightly against him, as though in fear she might suddenly vanish forever. Their bodies molded together as if they had always been one.

  “I tried to stay away,” he muttered. “I couldn’t...I have to have you...”

  “I knew you were alive,” Cara breathed, her face luminous with tears. “I knew it! Oh, Dave...”

  “No.”

  He leaned back slightly, separating them even though his good arm remained locked around her waist. Even though his gaze devoured her features as hungrily as if he had never expected to see her again, there was a restraint about him.

  “I’m not Dave Burkhart.”

  Cara felt as if the earth were falling away from beneath her. Maybe she didn’t know much in this world, but she surely knew the man who had saved her life, the man whom she loved with all her heart.

  “That’s ridiculous. I know you...”

  He interrupted her, speaking quickly, as if he didn’t get it said immediately, he never would. “I’m Donovan Brownley. Dave Burkhart is a name I’ve used for...for adventuring, when life got boring.”

  “You’re Donovan Brownley?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re not a spy?”

  “Nor a criminal. I’m nothing but a dull old businessman. Do you mind?”

  A tiny giggle, effervescent as champagne, bubbled out of Cara. “Mind? A name is just a label. It’s not important. You’re you...that’s all that matters.”

  The shell of tension that had wrapped him in vague, grey fear ever since he had waked in a Mexican hospital began to crack and flake away. Later he would tell her of recovering the other copy of the formula and the capture of la señora and the dramatic gunfight in the jungle that had almost killed him under any name, but now all he could think of was her, that she was really his, that she felt as passionately as he. The fear that her feelings would have changed once she was back in civilization had gripped his heart with iron fingers. Only as he had started his journey back and heard of her fighting reaction to Capitan Fonseca’s premature and melodramatic pronouncement of his death had that fear began to relax. Who would have thought that she would become such an agitator, just for him?

  Of course, Marlene had recognized his ‘Dave Burkhart’ name. He had used it several times before. Marlene would never have believed any report of his death until she had personally seen his body; she knew him too well. Smart of her to look after Cara until he could get back. Still, he had insisted on getting to Cara as quickly as possible.

  “Am I really the other half of your heart?”

  Cara looked startled, then smiled with a radiance known only in women in love.

  “You see, I talked to Señora Fonseca too,” said Donovan Brownley with a grin. “I love you, Cara Waters. I love you more than anything in the world, and if I have to kidnap you again to get you to marry me, I will.”

  Cara giggled again. “Try it,” she said happily, “and see what happens.”

  The look in her eyes gave no question as to her answer. Donovan found himself relaxing for the first time since he had yanked her off that street in Puerto Vallarta, perhaps even for the first time in his life. Certainly for the first time since the rumor that one of the office managers was going to steal the new formula had reached him so many weeks ago.

  Grinning with joy, he pulled Cara close for another kiss, their bodies seemingly melting together until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began as the two halves of their love, separated for too long, rejoined into one new and wonderful being.

  Then, suddenly conscious of where they were, they climbed hurriedly into the waiting helicopter. As the watching audience began to applaud happily, the rotors picked up speed and the great machine flew off, carrying the newly formed one of them away.