Chain Lightning (15 page)

Very carefully Sutter lifted his hands from Mandy’s smooth, too-tempting body.

“Accusing me of having lip is like the pot calling the kettle black,“ Sutter said, his voice husky with laughter and something much deeper, much hotter. “You’ve got enough lip for both of us.“

When Mandy glanced into the green blaze of Sutter’s eyes, her smile slipped. For an instant the look in his eyes went through her veins like chain lightning through night, a burst of sizzling brightness and many-tongued fire. She took a short, sharp breath and retreated behind her facade of humor once more.

“Are you calling me a duck?“ Mandy asked.

“A duck?“

“As in having enough lip for two birds.“

“Do birds have lips?“

“Only if ducks are birds. Then there’s plenty of lip to go around.“

“I think I’m going to cry foul.“

“Roight,“ she said instantly, “but you have to cry real tears or it doesn’t count.“

Laughing, shaking his head, Sutter conceded defeat “I begin to understand how you handled Clint. I, however, have a tactic that wasn’t available to him. Brute strength.“ Sutter’s arms snaked out and gently pinned Mandy against his body. He brushed his lips over her forehead before he hugged her. “You’re good people, Mandy,“ he said against her ear. “It will be a long time before I forgive myself for chaining you into that damned airplane seat.“

Mandy’s smile vanished as she remembered what Sutter had said about his own past, his own worst fear – to be chained, helpless.

“It was a seat belt, not a chain,“ she pointed out.

“There’s no difference when you’re too terrified to open the buckle. I’m sorry, Mandy. I should have known you weren’t joking. I should have seen your fear.“

“Why? Do you come across my brand of cowardice often?“

“You’re not a coward, honey.“

“Don’t,“ she said abruptly, twisting away from Sutter. “I may be afraid of my own shadow, as you pointed out a few days ago, but I’m not a child. I don’t like being chucked under the chin and told fairy tales any better than you did at the embassy.“

For an instant Sutter was tempted to grab Mandy and show her just how little he considered her a child. He wanted to kiss her until she melted and ran over him in a hot rain of passion that wouldn’t end until neither of them had enough strength left to lick their lips. Sweet, sizzling oblivion, to fall asleep with her taste in his mouth and her body slick and hot around him, caressing him even as he drove more deeply into her one last time.

Sutter expelled a sharp breath, wrenched his thoughts into another track and said evenly, “I’m glad you don’t want to be a child, because I sure as hell don’t want to be your daddy. Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s get some reef shoes. I promised Clint I’d find something you couldn’t name if it took me the two weeks we’ve got left.“

Giving Mandy no time to answer or argue, Sutter turned away. She hesitated only momentarily before following him. The reef shoes were kept in ragged rows on the cafeteria steps, right next to the bowl that held crusts for feeding the fish. Sutter and Mandy sorted through the wet, scarred, sandy shoes, looking for a pair that fitted well enough for them to tolerate for a few hours, using thick cotton socks as a cushion. Sutter finally found shoes that were long enough for his feet. The shoes Mandy found were long enough but too wide. While Mandy rummaged hopefully for a better fit, Sutter trotted back to the tent through the blustery wind, retrieved an extra pair of socks and presented them to Mandy with a flourish.

By the time Mandy and Sutter got to the beach, seven other people had scattered over the reef, which was being unveiled by the dropping tide. Sutter declared Mandy the guide, letting her choose the way out through the coral maze. Most people gravitated toward the tiny pools and narrow cracks where water and reef life concentrated. Mandy avoided the areas where water gleamed among the blunt coral shapes, choosing to teeter and balance on uneven coral knobs rather than wade in the crystalline water and sandy patches that occurred in the shallowest parts of the lagoon.

The reef sticks Mandy and Sutter carried made her balancing act possible. Five feet long, two inches in diameter, the sturdy reef sticks probed for weak patches of coral and braced people for whom two legs just weren’t enough for the demands of reef walking. Even with the stick, a timely hand from Sutter saved Mandy more than once, and vice versa. Slowly, randomly, they zigzagged over the coral floor of the draining lagoon.

Whenever Sutter spotted a new shape of coral, he required Mandy to name the creature that had created it. Every time she replied quickly, effortlessly, unintentionally revealing to him how utterly familiar she was with the denizens of the reef. Yet at the same time, her small sounds of delight and surprise at seeing the living animals told him that experiencing the reef was very new to her. The paradox baffled Sutter, but he was reluctant to question her. He didn’t want to replace her wonder and delight with hesitation and withdrawal.

“Oh, look!“ Mandy said, her voice ringing with excitement. “I’ve heard about this and seen pictures, but it’s unbelievably beautiful in its natural habitat.“

Mandy crouched down, bracing herself with one hand on the reef stick and dipping into a small coral pool with the other. Carefully she pried up a starfish. The animal was a sapphire blue so brilliant it looked unreal.

“What’s that?“ Sutter asked.

“Starfish,“ Mandy said absently, turning over the animal to appreciate the alien beauty of myriad tiny, slender “feet“ rippling like grass in a slow wind.

“Really?“ he said dryly. “You’re sure? Maybe you should count the arms again.“

“Five.“

“What’s its name?“

Mandy gave Sutter a sideways, impish smile. “I know just enough of the Latin name to fake you out the way I’ve been doing for the last hour.“

“Aha! Thought so. I didn’t think there was such a thing as a
Roseate vucuumupi.“

Mandy snickered.

“But you can redeem yourself by telling me why the beast is so blue,“ Sutter offered generously. “And if you say it’s blue because it’s unhappy I’ll make you walk back barefoot.“

“Would I say such a rank untruth? Never! This little beastie is happy because it isn’t seasick.“

The words were spoken with such casual certainty that it took a moment for their meaning to sink in.

“It isn’t seasick,“ Sutter repeated carefully, trying not to smile.

“Roight. If it were seasick, it would be – “

“Green,“ Sutter interrupted, groaning.

“Good on you,“ Mandy said, laughing, her eyes brilliant with enjoyment.

Sutter’s warm, salty fingertips brushed over her cheek. He whispered her name once, then again, knowing that he had never seen a woman quite so beautiful to him as Mandy was at that moment.

“I’d like to bottle you and take you out when I’m in some place so poor and remote that sunlight has to be piped in,“ Sutter said softly. “At the end of the day I’d pour you into my hands and bathe my senses in you until finally I’d fall asleep smiling, dreaming of all the colors of your laughter.“

Mandy blinked back sudden, stinging tears as she thought of how often Sutter must have been tired and hungry and alone at the end of the day.

“I’d like that,“ she said huskily. “I’d like to give you warmth when you’re cold, laughter when you’re alone.“

With an odd, almost sad smile, Sutter caressed Mandy’s cheek again and then turned away abruptly, not trusting himself to touch her anymore.

The humid wind gusted over Sutter, lifting his hair, making him restless. Mandy’s golden eyes watched him, wondering what he was thinking, what she had done to make him turn away so abruptly, why he affected her so deeply.

He had always affected her, from the first day she had walked into Anthea’s office and seen Sutter’s intense green eyes and go-to-hell smile staring at her from a picture frame. In the background had been empty grassland and a low tree where a leopard lay asleep in kingly ease. Sutter had been photographing the big cat when another photographer had called out. Sutter had turned, seen the camera, smiled challengingly…and the result had been the arresting snapshot that had been enlarged and framed for Anthea’s office.

The picture had haunted Mandy. Every time she heard of another one of Sutter’s close escapes, another diplomatic coup, another reluctant government talked into allotting more money for education and less for ostentation, her admiration had increased.

And with each of Sutter’s adventures, Mandy had become more uneasy at being around him on the few occasions when he came into the office. She had been certain that a man of such proven courage would have nothing but contempt for her cowardice. So she had kept him at bay in the same way that she had kept the rest of the world from coming close enough to hurt her again; she had turned aside every potentially serious moment with a quip and a flashing smile.

But she couldn’t smile when she was in the grip of her private terror. Sutter had seen her terrified, yet ultimately he had come to respect rather than to sneer at the depth of her fear. He was too much a man to fatten his own sense of self-worth by being contemptuous of people less strong than he was. Instead of lecturing her on her fear or self-righteously dragging her into the water – for her own good, of course – he had simply accepted her as she had come to him.

Quite imperfect.

Yet despite her imperfections he had wanted to bathe his senses in her, to dream of all the colors of her laughter. She wanted that, too. She wanted to know she could bring him ease when the rest of the world brought him only pain. She wanted that with an intensity that shook her.

My God. I’m falling in love with him.

“Hey, careful!“ Sutter said, catching Mandy as she stumbled without warning on the coral. “You okay?“

Mandy looked at the green eyes so close to hers and trembled. “I – I was thinking of something else.“

“You’re shaking. Are you sure you’re all right?“

She nodded. “I just scared myself, I guess. You know me. Afraid of my own shadow.“

Strong fingers closed more tightly around Mandy’s arms in silent rebuke. “But that’s just it,“ he said flatly. “The better I get to know you, the more I realize you aren’t a coward. If you were, you wouldn’t fight your fear with the last breath in your body.“ His hands gentled on her arms. “Come on. The tide has turned. We’d better head back.“

Mandy looked toward the outer reef. Her eyes widened. Instead of standing dark and rugged above the surface of the sea, the reef had once again succumbed to the ocean’s irresistible embrace. By the time Sutter and Mandy had crossed half the lagoon toward the beach, she was wading through the low, sandy points by choice, because it was so much faster and safer than balancing on the slippery, water-smoothed corals. The presence of water didn’t disturb her in the way that it had just a few days before. She was even able to stop in a long, narrow slit where water came to midthigh and enjoy the astonishing beauty of a piece of frilled sea life unfurled to its maximum scarlet glory, looking for all the world like a spiral chrysanthemum as it filtered the returning seawater for food.

“Wonder what a fish would make of that,“ Sutter said.

“It would never bite twice on one. I think that’s a stinging variety of tubeworm.“

“Ugly name for such a pretty thing.“

“You know how it is in the ocean,“ Mandy said. “The more brightly colored the object, the better the chance that it’s no good to eat.“

“Mother Nature’s little joke on man.“

“More like Mother Nature’s way of saying ‘Look but don’t touch.’”

Sutter gave Mandy a sideways look, wondering if Mother Nature knew she had utterly failed to warn off predators in Mandy’s case – golden eyes and black hair, skin tanned to a honey brown by the tropic sun, laughter and grace and the promise of sensual heat in every move she made. He was having one hell of a time looking and not touching. As he followed her back to shore he admired her elegant back, her long legs and the inverted heart shape of her bottom, and he found himself hoping she would lose her footing and give him an excuse to grab her and run his hands over her just once. Then he wondered how he would make himself let go of her.

Damn Anthea anyway…
.

Yet even as Sutter mentally cursed Anthea, he was watching Mandy, remembering her laughter, and his curse lacked its usual force. Even so, he knew he would be a fool if he succumbed to the womanly temptation of her. The fact that he had come to like Mandy and to respect her attempts to control her fear rather than be controlled by it was simply one more reason for not succumbing to raw desire and seducing her. She wasn’t a woman for casual sex. She felt too much, too deeply. He would hate himself if he took advantage of that.

But unless he stayed away from her, he didn’t know how he’d manage to keep himself from reaching out and taking all that golden sensuality and secret fire for himself, and to hell with his civilized scruples.

“Blackjack,“ Mandy said, turning over the ace and lining it up next to the king of spades she had just been dealt. Ray and Tommy groaned.

“That’s three in a row,“ Ray grumbled, pushing four pennies toward Mandy. “If I weren’t dealing, I’d wonder….“

“Isn’t it time for you to feed the fish?“ Tommy asked, tossing his two cards at Ray while looking at Mandy.

“Nope. Tide’s too high.“

Tommy muttered, “Bet it isn’t more than four feet deep in the pond.“ He took the cards from Ray. “I’ll deal for a while. Sally, you want in on this round?“

“Sure.“

Sally, who had been tending bar, looked at the other customers. Two of them were elderly teachers from France, who could make a single beer last for an hour between them. The other five were divers who, like Ray and Tommy, were very restless after three days of enforced time on land. The men had tried to get out diving that afternoon by walking out over the reef at low tide, but the surf had been too violent. The divers had returned grumbling and had been drinking beer and playing cards and listening to the wind ever since. An hour ago the wind had died as suddenly as it had come up, but it was too close to sunset to do the divers any good.