"On the phone. You were just talking to Daddy. He wanted to check up on you, make sure I was okay. Only, it's just he won't give me the unlisted numbers. They changed them after I was-" the words were hard to get out "-cut off. Mother has a card sent to me on Christmas. Although not last year. Or this year. Yet. I thought I was gone for good. This is so unlike him to take the time to look after me like this."
Remo could see the flood waters rising in her eyes again. They were at the air stairs. He stopped. "He's a regular Robert Young," Remo agreed. "Now can we change the subject from Daddy Warbucks? Speaking for the orphans of the world, if I have to hear one more story about your childhood of ponies on the patio and hot and cold running wet nurses, I'm gonna heave all over this Mary Kay luggage of yours."
Her tears dried up. "Don't you dare," she snapped. She shooed the men with her luggage off to the cargo hold. "You made a big enough mess back in my apartment. And don't think I'm not keeping a running total of what you owe me. By the time we're through, Daddy will be writing a check to me, not you." Pushing past him, she mounted the stairs.
The plane was nearly empty. Chiun sat alone on the left side of the aisle while Remo and Amanda sat in the two seats across from him.
Once they were back in the air and Amanda got her first good glimpse of jungle, her expression softened.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" she said quietly as she looked out the window.
Remo leaned over her, peering out at the sea of green. Clouds of burned-off mist rose into the early-morning sky.
"Glad I don't have to mow it," he shrugged, flopping back in his seat.
"It's not only jungle down here," Amanda insisted. "A lot of Brazil is covered by savanna. It's like Africa in a lot of ways. Have you ever been to equatorial Africa?"
Remo was doing his best to ignore her. Chiun wouldn't let him.
"She is talking to you," the old man said blandly. He was staring out at the left wing.
"I know. But can't we pretend she isn't?" Remo asked. "I've had to put up with it the last six thousand miles."
"No," Chiun replied. "Because then she might try talking to me."
"Now, now," Amanda admonished, wagging a finger at the Master of Sinanju. "I know you're not the grumpy Gus you pretend to be."
There was a flash of silk, so fast Amanda didn't see it. Remo barely managed to snatch her hand out of the way of Chiun's razor-sharp fingernails.
"Oh," Amanda said softly. "Oh, my."
Remo's hands as they held hers were strong, but not coarse. They were the hands of a real man and not those of the perfumed sons of privilege she had dated all her life. She felt a shudder of electricity shoot through her as Remo held tight for a few lingering moments. For an instant in her tripping heart she wondered if he felt it, too.
"Hey, headlights, if you don't want a stump where your rings used to go, you'll refrain from cheesing off the pissy old Korean guy." He let her go. Amanda wasn't sure what to think. She'd definitely felt something. And while this Remo was a barbarian and, worse, an employee, there was something raw and primal about him.
"I thought we were getting a little better acquainted," she ventured hesitantly.
"Nope," Remo said. "Just didn't want your blood squishing up my new shoes."
She pouted her perfect lips. "Afraid of commitment, I see," she complained.
Remo gave her a baleful look. "Is this you coming on to me? 'Cause if it is, I wish you'd go back to yelling."
Across the aisle, the Master of Sinanju huffed angrily. "And I wish this craft would crash and spare me from having to listen to either of you," he groused, getting to his feet.
Amanda was sending a hectoring finger back his way when Remo intercepted it. With a disapproving harrumph, Chiun glided up the aisle and sank into an empty seat.
"Can't keep your hands to yourself, can you?" Amanda said, doe-eyed optimism returning.
"Put it back in your pants, Amanda," Remo said as he let go of her hand. "Besides, I'm just the help, remember?"
He got up and moved across the aisle to the seat Chiun had vacated. Amanda followed him.
"I've dated the help before," Amanda confided.
"The pool boy, some gardeners. About a dozen drivers."
"Beats a cash bonus, I guess," Remo said. "Assuming you keep your yap shut during. Which I doubt."
He got up and sat in his original seat. Getting up once more to follow, Amanda settled back into hers. "Why are you running away, Remo?" she asked. "What are you men so afraid of?"
"The usual stuff. Commitment leading to long-term relationship leading to me not being able to watch The Three Stooges in peace because you're harping at me to trim the hedges and take the cat to the vet. You want a window into a guy's mind? That's it."
Amanda's face darkened and she folded her arms. "It wasn't like I was proposing or anything," she grumbled.
"You certainly were not," a squeaky voice chimed in from farther up the cabin. "I am having a difficult enough time explaining you, Remo. When you finally do wed, it will be to a Korean maiden, not some melon-dugged ghost face. Besides, this one is damaged goods."
Amanda was embarrassed enough already. When Remo responded she felt like melting into her seat. "How you figure that, Little Father?" he called.
"She was left at the-altar," Chiun called back. "Do you not listen? She keeps going on about it."
Amanda's face grew horrified. "I was not," she insisted to the nearest person, a passing Brazilian stewardess who had no idea what was being said.
"He was probably marrying her for those millions she keeps going on about," Remo said to Chiun.
"I was not left at the altar," Amanda hissed. "There was some ...unpleasantness at my sister Abigail's wedding. That's all I said. You two are the ones who don't listen."
"I listen perfectly," Chiun said. "You talk wrong."
Remo shrugged. "Sue me for only listening to every fourth word," he said. "I'm taking a nap." Reclining his seat, he closed his eyes.
Amanda couldn't believe his nerve. The way both of these men acted it was as if she was their servant and not the other way around. She hoped that by hiring them to protect her, Daddy was signaling a thawing in his attitude toward her. The quality of help he was employing had obviously taken a dramatic downturn since she'd been frozen out of family affairs. She wanted to give him an earful before the inheritance she was counting on was completely frittered away.
Casting a last, longing look at Remo's slumbering form, she turned her eyes back to the window and the lush majesty of the Brazilian rain forest.
THEIR PLANE TOUCHED down in Macapa early in the afternoon. Remo and Chiun waited until the few other passengers on board had deplaned before gliding down the retractable stairs and out into the eighty-degree heat.
The air in Macapa was like a hot shower in July. The humidity was already soaking Amanda's blouse by the time she stepped off the plane.
"There's no one here to carry my bags," she said.
"Yeah, how 'bout that," Remo said.
Frowning at Remo, she looked to Chiun.
"The Master of Sinanju does not lift," he sniffed. "I can vouch for him on that one. No luggage, no bodies, no nothing. But don't worry. We'll wait." Scowling, Amanda collected her suitcases alongside the other passengers.