enough to land her a few parts. Until another kind of look came into fashion, and then she’d do commercials or even catalog work, and maybe some modeling.
Not that modeling appealed to her. The few models she knew were obsessed by diets, cutaneous laser resurfacing, ultrasound liposuctioning. One of them was actually growing her own collagen for when she needed a major overhaul.
Jasmine would much rather settle into a comfortable, low-key life with Eric and their children, and maybe her grandmother living together in a little bungalow somewhere. Fashion was fleeting. Film fame was fleeting. Family was forever.
Oh, yeah? So what happened to all of yours?
Somewhere up ahead she heard a sound that didn’t belong in this mystical, moss-hung environment.
A splash. A bump, a yelp...
And then a groan.
Two
The boat looked out of place in the muted setting. It was painted a muddy shade of royal blue, the paint scuffed in places to reveal a previous coat of turquoise.
Idly, Jasmine scratched her right cheek with her left hand and her left ankle with the toe of her right shoe. When she itched anywhere, she was inclined to itch all over. Power of suggestion.
Either that or mosquito bites.
A canoe would have been good. A dugout canoe would be wonderful, but probably too much to hope for, even in this wilderness. At least it was wooden, not aluminum. It could still belong to a native hunter or trapper or maybe a fisherman with a rich lode of stories to share. Travel pieces with a human interest angle had a far broader appeal. Oklahoma had Will Rogers. North Carolina had...Daniel Boone? Black-beard?
Well, surely they had somebody interesting. A place like this must have a fascinating history. She’d have to ask Clemmie about it before she checked out tomorrow.
“Hello-oo,” she called out tentatively. “Anybody there?”
The sound that greeted her could, she supposed, have come from a hunter or a trapper. As profanity went, it was not particularly original. At least it didn’t reek of filth and venom. She didn’t mind a few damns and hells when the occasion demanded, but she hated filth and venom.
Whoever it was, he didn’t sound as if he were in the mood for company. Carefully, she began to edge away from the creek, or stream or rivulet—whatever it was. According to the map, there was supposed to be a big lake with a name that reminded her of mosquitoes and a rıver called the Alligator somewhere around here.
What if he was an alligator poacher? She’d read somewhere that hunting alligators was against the law. Jasmine had been called laid-back. She’d never been called stupid.
“I’m leaving now,” she sang out, in case he decided to cut the odds of getting caught. “I didn’t see anything, so I think I’ll just go on back now. Have a nice day.”
“Dammıt—hold on!”
She held on. It was the kind of voice that commanded obedience. Clutching the straps of her shoulder bag, she held on as if her life depended on it, thinking that in a pinch, she might use it as a weapon.
“I’ve, um...I’ll send somebody if you need help, all right?”
“Need—help!”
He sounded as if he were in pain. Tom between curiosity, concern and a healthy respect for hidden danger—she’d been at an impressionable age when she’d seen Deliverance—Jasmine hesitated just a moment too long.
“Can’t move. Need—a hand. Please.”
That last word was uttered too reluctantly to be anything but sincere. Whoever he was—whatever fix he was in—one thing was clear. He hated like the very devil having to beg for help.
“Sorry, but I’m on the other side of the creek.” That prompted more cursing, and then another, “Please?”
“It looks awfully deep. I can’t swim.” Even if it was only up to her knees, she wasn’t particularly eager to step off the bank into that dark, sluggish stream. She couldn’t see a glimmer of bottom. Even if she didn’t drown, she might get eaten alive. Maybe not by piranhas, but there might be leeches. She’d seen African Queen three times.
“Follow bank—south—forty yards. Fallen tree.” Fallen tree. Uh-huh. “Which way is south?”
She peered through hanging branches, hanging vines and swags of gray-green Spanish moss, trying to catch a glimpse of the man behind the voice. If she was going to take the risk, she’d just as soon know what she was getting involved in.
“Toward sun.”
Well, that was easy. As dense as the trees were, there weren’t enough leaves to block out the pale, low-riding sun. “Well...all right, I’ll try.”
Her mind raced ahead as she picked her way along the narrow, winding creek. It could be a heart attack, snakebite—anything. He might even have tripped on one of his own traps and now he was lying there in agony, his lifeblood seeping into the muck while hyenas sniffed at his carcass.
There weren’t any hyenas in North America, even she knew that much. That didn’t mean there weren’t scavengers. Predators.
“Where the devil are you?”
“I’m coming!”
Forty yards. How was she supposed to measure forty yards when every few steps she had to circle around a root or a fallen tree or a tangle of vines—none of them hairy, thank goodness, but some with wicked briars.
There was the tree he’d promised. It had fallen across the creek, blocking two-thirds of its width. Barely enough room to squeak past in a boat, if he’d come from this direction.
And he must have come from this direction, because he’d known about the tree.
Scratching her cheek—not actually scratching, but pressing into the itch with her fingernaıls—Jasmine surveyed the situation. If she could keep her balance, keep from falling in, she might be able to walk out far enough to jump the rest of the way. That’s if she didn’t lose her nerve first.
She lost her nerve, but it was too late. Teetering on the lower edge of the huge trunk, she faced two choices. Turn around on the mossy rounded slope and go back...or jump.
She jumped.
“Ow! Oh, shoot!”
“What happened?” His voice held an edge that could have come from pain, or it could have come from anger. She’d like to think it came from pain.
Well, that didn’t sound very nice, either: She certainly didn’t wish the man any more pain. All the same, an angry man—an angry strange man. all alone here in the wilds of the jungle...
Not jungle—swamp. There was a subtle difference, although she wasn’t certain just what it was.
No lions or tigers, only alligators and poisonous snakes?
Oh,
