Chain Lightning (8 page)

“How’s the little Sheila doing?“ Ray asked, his blue eyes vivid with health and good humor.

Sutter grunted. The quarter-mile walk from the tent to the “dive shop“ – little more than a small shed – had taken some of the edge off Sutter’s temper, but not enough. He looked longingly through the dark green fringe of narrow she-oak leaves, trying to catch a glimpse of the fantastic coral reef he had come so far and waited so long to see. Though invisible from where he stood, the presence of the sea was palpable in the brine-laden air, the distant murmur of breakers, the crushed coral lying white and pure beneath his feet.

“Any chance of a dive today?“ Sutter asked wistfully.

“Sorry, mate. It’s blowing too hard to take out the dive boat. The only other way to get out is to walk out through the lagoon to the reef at low tide and dive off the far side. But it will be dark by the next low tide.“

Even as Sutter swore, he knew it was just as well that he didn’t go diving. He was too tired and too edgy to dive. “What about tomorrow?“

“S.S.D.D.“ Ray saw Sutter’s lack of comprehension and smiled. “Same manure, different day.“

Sutter’s mouth kicked up at one corner.

“If it’s windy,“ Ray continued, “most of the blokes are going to walk the reef tomorrow morning and dive off the wall. You’re welcome to come along. The Sheila, too, if she’s up to it. Walking the reef both ways in diving gear takes it out of you.“

“I doubt that Mandy will feel like taking on the sea,“ Sutter said sardonically.

“She did look a bit like old beer,“ Ray said. “But we’d better go over her diving gear as well as yours just the same. That way when the fancy takes her, she’ll be ready to go.“

The next hour of checking equipment to see how it had survived the baggage handlers on two continents went a long way toward smoothing Sutter’s ragged temper. Not for the first time in his life, Sutter wondered if diving weren’t all that had kept him sane in a brutally crazy world. It was months since he had gone diving in anything but Brazil’s opaque jungle rivers. As a form of release, that kind of river moving served its purpose, but only barely. He hungered to feel the cool, clean sea sweep around him in shades of blue, buoyant salt water taking the weight of the world from him and giving him the incomparable gift of flight.

By the end of the hour Sutter had relaxed completely, and Ray had accepted Sutter as a member of the informal fraternity of scuba divers. Sutter’s ease and expertise with the gear, his critical attention to detail and his wry stories of the drawbacks of diving in unknown jungle rivers all had combined to make the young diver watch Sutter with growing interest and admiration.

“Looks like your Sheila bought herself all new gear to meet the Lady,“ Ray said, setting the last of the equipment aside and looking at it with mild envy. “Only the best, too.“

Sutter grunted. He was certain Anthea had bought the expensive wet suit, tanks, mask, fins and all the rest. He also had no doubt that everything would fit Mandy perfectly. Anthea left no detail overlooked when she committed herself to a project.

Suddenly the sound of children’s laughter burst into the dive shed’s masculine silence. Sutter’s head snapped up in surprise.

“That’s the Townehome lot,“ Ray said. “Family comes here every year. The girl was nearly born here, but we got Linda to the mainland in time.“

“They sound a little young for diving.“

“Ted and Linda swap off the nanny duties. One dives, the other wades.“ Ray glanced at his dive watch. “Time for tucker. Do you know where you eat?“

“No, but with only a few buildings on the whole island, the cafeteria can’t be hard to find.“

“It’s just back of the office, which is just below the bird sanctuary and facing the lagoon.“

Sutter smiled. “Got it.“

He stood, stretched and walked back down the coral pathway, past the handful of small, frankly plain cabins and wind-battered tents. There were two bathhouses, one per sex, although the men on the island probably outnumbered the women four to one. Lady Elliot was not for the casual tourist; the accommodations were spartan, the island utterly isolated, and if you didn’t like diving, there was little else to do other than walk laps of the tiny island. Even walking slowly, he doubted that it would take Mandy more than an hour or two for a complete circuit. She was going to be one very bored tourist before the three weeks were up – maybe even bored enough that a boat or plane ride to the mainland would be welcome.

As Sutter approached the tent that had been hastily set up within a she-oak grove and at a distance from the other tents, his long stride slowed to a crawl. He wasn’t looking forward to the next few minutes. Mandy had been as much a victim of Anthea’s good intentions as he had. He owed Mandy an apology and he knew it. He just didn’t know how to phrase it.

“Mandy?“ Sutter said quietly, not wanting to startle her by walking in unannounced.

No answer came.

Concerned, Sutter pushed aside the ragged flap and looked in. Mandy lay on her side, deeply asleep, her hands tucked beneath her chin and her knees slightly bent. Her dark hair was fanned across the pillow like a silky forerunner of night. Her suit jacket had been discarded, her blouse was half-pulled out from her waistband, and her skirt had crept halfway up her wonderfully sleek thighs. One of her shoes was still on. The other teetered on the edge of slipping off her toes.

Silently Sutter knelt next to the mattress and eased off Mandy’s shoes. Beneath the thin nylon her foot was warm. He held her instep in his palm for a moment longer than necessary before he gently released her. She didn’t stir. He considered waking her for dinner, then discarded the idea. The darkness beneath her eyes told him that sleep was more necessary to her than food. But would she sleep, or would she be haunted by nightmares, residue of her earlier terror?

Sutter thought of lying down with Mandy and holding her against the nightmares he suspected would come. Maybe that would serve as an apology…his hard body pressed against her trembling one, his arms holding her, his mouth kissing away even the memory of her fear.

A hissed curse sizzled through the silence. Sutter came to his feet in a single motion and turned away from Mandy. Without looking back, he left the tent. As he strode down the path to get dinner, he cursed himself every step of the way. Miraculously he didn’t get lost, but that owed more to the handful of people straggling toward the cafeteria than to any innate cleverness on his part.

The dining area was as spartan as the dive shop. There was a linoleum floor that was clean and old, perhaps twelve plastic-topped tables arranged at random, metal folding chairs, no curtains for the open windows. Dinner was served buffet-style and cooked by the college-age kids who vied for the privilege of spending time on Lady Elliot Island. Sutter lined up, accepted a lot of everything available and found an empty chair. It wasn’t difficult There looked to be no more than twenty guests camped at Lady Elliot’s rustic resort.

The food itself was just what Sutter had expected – hearty, high calorie and plentiful. Perfect fare for divers who burned off thousands of calories every day simply keeping their bodies warm; for beneath the sun-heated surface of tropical waters lay the cool blue depths, where seventy degrees was considered quite warm, yet seventy was nearly thirty degrees below body temperature. Even in wet suits, diving used calories as fast as they could be replaced. As a group, scuba divers tended to be muscular and very hard, for all fat had long since been burned off.

By the time Sutter was halfway through dinner, Ray and two other divers had joined him. They told Sutter that beer and wine were available from the “bar,“ which boasted one of the two refrigerators on the island. Adding a can of Fosters beer to the menu perked it up considerably, Sutter discovered.

After dinner the men adjourned to the bar, which was about the size of a small bus. The decor consisted of six stools, a handful of tiny tables and the much-prized refrigerator, which cooled everything from beer to medicines to film. The spartan amenities were more than compensated for by the lively conversation and Australian beer, but an hour after the abrupt sunset, people began yawning and wandering off to their beds. Sunrise came early, and with it came the possibility of diving. That was what had lured everyone to the remote island – diving, not sleeping or fancy dining or hard drinking. On Lady Elliot Island the sea was the center of all conversations and actions; and as with all demanding mistresses, the sea required that the men who enjoyed her favors be strong, alert and skilled.

It was full dark with a lid of tropical clouds when Sutter walked back to the tent. Heat lightning danced on the western horizon, but Sutter knew there would be no rain. Not yet. There would be a period of buildup before the clouds were released from their turmoil, days of waiting and seething and growing toward the glorious storm.

Wind rushed through the she-oaks, stirring their long, soft, needlelike leaves. The sound of breakers was very distant, almost lost beneath the wind, telling Sutter that the tide was at full ebb.

There was no light shining inside the tent.

“Mandy?“

Sutter’s low query brought no answer. He hadn’t really expected it to. He ducked into the tent, moved very quietly to the empty mattress and began patting along the side closest to the tent, searching for the “electric torch“ Ray had assured him was there. The other tents all included a post with electrical outlets, but not Sutter’s tent; it had been hastily erected in answer to hard pressure from the folks who owned Lady Elliot Island – the Australian government.

Sutter put his hand over the flashlight lens and turned it on. Red-toned light bloomed in the tent. He opened his fingers just a crack, allowing enough light to escape so that he could see the details of the tent’s interior. Mandy hadn’t moved. Her face was flushed; her breathing was regular and deep.

Even though Sutter suspected that he could have banged scuba tanks next to Mandy’s ear without getting a response, he was careful to make as little noise as possible. As he played the light around the tent, he saw that someone had set Mandy’s glitzy pink backpack just inside the doorway, alongside his own battered khaki model.

Suddenly the thought of getting out of his clothes became incredibly appealing to Sutter. He kicked off his canvas jungle boots, unbuttoned his short-sleeved bush shirt and stuffed it into the backpack pocket he reserved for dirty clothes. The khaki shorts followed, leaving him wearing nothing more than the narrow cotton jockstrap that was all he tolerated in tropical climates. He started to pull out a pair of cotton briefs and fresh khaki shorts, then stopped himself. If he had been alone he would have slept bare. He would wear the jockstrap for the sake of civilized sensibilities, but he’d be damned if he would wear shorts over it. Even now, in darkness with the wind blowing, the temperature in the tent was too close to eighty to bother with modesty. Surely a woman of Mandy’s age and looks wouldn’t faint at the sight of a man wearing a jockstrap.

The thought of fainting and clothes made Sutter glance over at Mandy again. She was wearing full office regalia, including suffocating nylon panty hose. After a few moments of wrestling with his conscience – and even Sutter couldn’t have said which side of the question his conscience advocated – he stuffed the flashlight into a pillowcase. A soft glow filled the tent as the cloth muted the light’s white glare. He knelt next to Mandy’s mattress and began undressing her.

The skirt’s zipper sounded loud in the tent’s breathless silence. Mandy didn’t stir even when Sutter eased one strong hand beneath her hips and lifted her so that the skirt and half-slip could slide freely off her body. Forcing himself to look away from the allure of her long, nylon-clad legs, Sutter went to work on the stubborn buttons on her navy-pinstriped blouse. When he finally lifted her upper body to peel away the cloth, she murmured protestingly.

He barely heard. In the muted light her skin gleamed tantalizingly through the openings in the bra’s dark lace. Tiny drops of sweat glowed in the shadowed valley between her breasts. Sutter wanted nothing more than to lower his head and lick up each mesmerizing bit of moisture. He wanted that so fiercely that his lips almost brushed her skin before he prevented himself.

A throttled groan escaped Sutter. Fists clenched on his thighs, he fought to control the wild desire that was stabbing through him like heat lightning, telling of turbulence and need…but no release, no healing storm filled with passionate rain. Mandy was a woman for marriage. He was a man who had no belief in that particular institution.

Damn Anthea!

Sutter stared down at the sleeping Mandy. He knew he should remove her panty hose. Wearing that kind of suffocating underwear in tropic heat and humidity was asking for the most uncomfortable kind of rash. Yet he was reluctant to remove any more of Mandy’s clothing. It wasn’t concern for her modesty that slowed him down, for she was wearing bikini briefs of the same dark lace as her bra; but Sutter wasn’t sure he trusted himself to touch Mandy again, even for her own good.

The realization shocked him. He was known for his self-control, for the steel will that drove him past the point where other men gave up and gave in. Nor had his own sexuality ever held him hostage, not even when he was a teenager angry at the world for giving him a mother who was a coward and a father who cared only for hard liquor and fast cars.

Sutter closed his eyes. Surely he could remove a sleeping woman’s nylons without falling on her like a starving dog on a bone. Couldn’t he? With an impatient curse, he opened his eyes, hooked his long fingers over the waistband of Mandy’s panty hose and peeled them from her in a single continuous motion. When he was finished, he threw the filmy nylon aside as though it had burned him.

Because it had. The heat of her body was held in each gossamer strand. Moving swiftly, jaw set in a rigid line, Sutter lifted Mandy enough to allow him to pull down the top sheet of the bed. He eased her into the covers, lifted the sheet up to her waist and yanked back his hands.