Lauren’s stomach dropped endlessly.
He glanced briefly down. ‘Relax, I’ll keep you safe.’
Lauren didn’t doubt that; what frightened her was the possibility of him being hurt. And that was strange, because she barely knew the man. OK, so he had a bewildering effect on her, but she didn’t even like him much, although he’d been kind in his arrogant way. Apart from common humanity, why should she care about his safety?
‘Here we are,’ he said at last. He killed the engine and looked around with the curiously still intentness of a predator sensing prey, before ordering curtly, ‘Stay there.’
A swift, silent rush took him out of the Land Rover and around to her door. When it opened Lauren pulled herself onto the seat, groaning beneath her breath when her cramped legs protested painfully.
Strong hands caught her by the waist; as he lifted her out and set her down, Guy said, ‘You did well. I’m sorry you got caught up in this.’
Her legs refused to carry her; when she staggered, he lifted her and strode off towards the dim figure waiting outside the small terminal building.
From here the gunfire seemed harmless, more like fireworks. Locked in Guy’s safe, strong arms with the moon silvering his bare shoulders, Lauren hoped fervently that no one was dying out there—and desperately that the raiders would be repelled by the time Guy left the airport.
The waiting man gestured, saying something urgently. Lauren felt Guy tense, before he rattled out a question.
The answer didn’t please him. He replied in a quiet, deadly voice and put Lauren down, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders. The man stepped back swiftly to usher them both into the reception area.
Tiny, it was almost filled with the resort guests, several carrying children who cried or stared around with bewildered eyes. Suitcases were being shuffled onto an elderly cart, and everyone looked strained and serious.
The man who had met them glanced at Lauren and switched to English. ‘Passport, please, ma’am.’
Lauren said shakily, ‘It’s back at the resort. In the safe with my ID—with all my papers.’
The solid, middle-aged man whose glossy dark hair was greying at the temples looked shocked. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but—’
‘Josef, this is no time for formalities,’ Guy interrupted, his deep voice harsh. ‘You know she can’t stay here.’
A uniformed man—the pilot, Lauren realised—strode swiftly in from the other side of the building. ‘Guy!’ he said, grinning largely, ‘I might have guessed you’d be here! No show without Punch, eh?’ He examined Lauren with interest.
Guy acknowledged the greeting and concisely told him what had happened.
The pilot frowned. ‘Man, I can’t take her to Valanu without papers! You know they won’t let her in—they’ve been paranoid ever since that drug syndicate tried to infiltrate.’
‘You’ll take her,’ Guy said curtly. ‘There’s no alternative.’
Frowning, his voice tight with concern, Josef interposed, ‘She cannot travel to Valanu without papers.’
In a voice that could have splintered granite, Guy said, ‘She’ll leave Sant’Rosa if I have to hijack Brian’s plane.’
The pilot looked at Lauren’s startled face and away again. ‘You know what they’ll do with her, Guy. They’ll chuck her in prison with the prostitutes and the addicts, and she won’t get out until someone vouches for her or she gets new papers. In Valanu that could take weeks—everything goes through Fiji. Now, if it was you, Guy, it would be OK. They know you—they’d let you in without a passport.’
Lauren said, ‘Look, it’s all right. Don’t worry about me.’
All three men stared at her with identical expressions, and then at each other.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Guy said brusquely.
Naked from the waist up, with light gleaming gold on his broad, tanned shoulders and strongly muscled arms, he looked like a barbaric warrior, his unshaven face only emphasising his formidable presence.
Between his teeth he said, ‘Josef, you’re a pastor in your church, aren’t you?’
Josef glanced at him with astonishment. ‘I am,’ he agreed.
‘Very well, then. You can marry us and I’ll vouch for her.’
The pilot gave a crack of laughter. ‘Yep, that’d do it. Trust you, Guy, to come up with the goods.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But you’d better tie that knot as soon as you can. I’m leaving in ten minutes. That gunfire’s getting closer.’
Stunned, Lauren gasped, ‘That’s utterly impossible. I don’t even know your name.’
‘Guy Bagaton,’ Guy said indifferently, adding with brutal candour, ‘And you don’t have a choice.’ He nodded at the airport manager. ‘All right, Josef, let’s get it over and done with.’
A ragged salvo of popping noises silenced everyone in the terminus. It faded away, to be followed by a heavy whoomph that seemed to lift the ground beneath their feet. One of the women stifled a scream and a child started to whimper. With a muffled oath, the pilot raced out of the building.
The harassed Sant’Rosan marshalling the passengers had jumped along with everyone else, but recovered himself quickly. ‘Please, board in a line. Women and children first, please.’
The small crowd clumped into a disorderly file and began to follow the pilot across the grass airstrip.
Guy said shortly, ‘Josef, get going! We don’t have time to waste.’ He took Lauren’s elbow in a grip that meant business and urged her after the manager, already heading into a small office.
Once there, Josef said, ‘I am a minister in my church here, but perhaps such a marriage will not be legal anywhere but on Sant’Rosa. However, ma’am, it will mean that you will get out of here and they will not put you in prison in Valanu.’
Lauren protested, ‘No! Look, prison can’t be that bad—and it shouldn’t take long to get another passport from Britain. Anyway, how do you know they’ll let me in even if I do go ahead with this?’
‘Trust me,’ Guy answered, his expression grimly determined, ‘they will. And trust me again—tropical prisons are more than unhygienic, and it could take weeks to replace your papers—always assuming the Valanuan authorities let you contact the British representative in Fiji.’ The hard authority in his tone and the granite cast of his features silenced her objection. ‘Just say yes in all the right places, otherwise you’ll be caught in a war zone. If that happens, you’ll endanger anyone who has to look after you.’
It was that final truth that convinced her. White-lipped, she said, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
Nightmarish images from television screens clouded her mind so that she couldn’t think beyond a silent, urgent plea that he stay safe.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, a cynical edge to the words. ‘The marriage will satisfy the bureaucracy on Valanu that you’re not a beachcomber intent on drinking and drugging the rest of your life away at their expense.’ He drew the gold signet ring from his little finger and turned her to face Josef.
Numbly, Lauren went through with the brief ceremony, backed by the sound of the plane’s engines and punctuated by the ominous sound of gunfire and a couple more of those heavy explosions.
She responded like an automaton, shivering when Guy slid the ring onto her finger, holding it there because it was too big. Warm from his body heat, it felt like a shackle, but she relaxed a little as he gripped her hand in his strong one.