Paradise Burning (18 page)

“
That’s odd,” Claire said. “Phil just
drove up, and it doesn’t look like she has customers with her.
She’s good about bringing prospects, but . . .” Claire’s voice
trailed into a silence pregnant with unspoken thoughts.

After rapid analysis of what Claire
had
not
said—laid against all
the gossip Mandy had heard—it wasn’t too difficult to figure Claire
Blue was not likely to be a bosom buddy of her husband’s former
wife. Undoubtedly, they got along with the aid of polite
professionalism and good manners, but social calls were few and far
between.

“
Shall I leave?” Mandy
asked.

“
Heavens, no,” Claire scoffed, “we
haven’t even had lunch yet. Maybe Phil stopped to see the new
construction and thinks she’d better check in with me lest I get
dark ideas about her motives.” Claire’s tone was not as insouciant
as her words.

“
I thought Phil was happily married to
some wealthy politician,” Mandy ventured.

“
She is,” Claire growled. “I
think.”

There was also some family connection, Mandy
mused. Uncle. That was it. Phil, the real estate broker, had
recently married Brad Blue’s uncle, Garrett Whitlaw, making Brad
Blue’s ex-wife his aunt. With her back safely to Claire, Mandy
allowed herself a grin as she coaxed Bubba into his playpen. She
recalled her surge of jealousy when Peter first told her about his
search for hookers. Logic and love seemed to be totally
incompatible.

And there she went again! Love had nothing to
do with it. Maybe she should consider being one of those modern
women who stayed single and used a man only long enough for stud
service.

Appalled, Mandy stared blankly at Bubba, who
was expressing his displeasure at being returned to his playpen by
pounding a small plastic truck against the padded floor. No way.
Never. For Amanda Armitage, it was all or nothing.

Sure, girl. And at the moment nothing’s
exactly what you’ve got.

The front door crashed in. Phillippa
Tierney Whitlaw stood there, panting from the unaccustomed exertion
of stairs, and glared across the room, her nut brown eyes coming to
rest, with loathing, on young Bubba. “The goddamned thing came
up
plus!
” she
wailed.

Stunned and speechless, Mandy and Claire
stared at the customarily immaculate Realtor. Phil’s sleek and
stylish hair looked as if it had been combed with an eggbeater. The
jacket of her beige designer suit was unbuttoned, the collar of her
cream silk blouse askew. Her lipstick was gone—chewed off, Mandy
guessed—and her mascara had made irregular smudges beneath eyes
that were huge with shock or fright.

Mandy recovered first, hastening forward to
steer Phil to one of the wicker chairs in front of Claire’s desk.
When Phil had sampled the ice water Claire produced from the
model’s refrigerator, she straightened up and muttered an apology.
“I’m sorry, Claire, but I didn’t know where else to go. I thought
you’d be able to understand. Maybe have some advice.”

Mandy and Claire looked at each other over
Phil’s head. “Uh, maybe I’d better go,” Mandy repeated weakly.
Truthfully, her researcher’s instincts were quivering and she
wanted to stay exactly where she was, though she had a horrible
suspicion she’d be indulging something as base as blatant curiosity
about a near-stranger’s private business.

“
No, it’s all right,” Phil said. “Word
is, you’re good at keeping your mouth shut. I hear nearly every
woman in town has tried to pump you about your boss, and you
haven’t given out Word One. But I’d appreciate the same treatment,”
she cautioned. “This is not something I want broadcast about
town.”

“
Of course not,” Mandy and Claire
echoed in unison.

“
I’m pregnant,” Phil
declared.

“
But that’s wonderful!” Mandy
cried.

Phil glared.

“
Oh, my God!” Claire
breathed.

“
Yeah, right,” came Phil’s caustic
response.

Mandy got a grip, snapped her mouth shut and
mentally took a step back. She had no place in this discussion.

“
And you haven’t told Garrett,” Claire
stated.

“
I just found out.”

There was a short pause. “Home pregnancy
test?” Claire queried. At Phil’s morose nod, she added briskly,
“Then you should see a doctor, get a professional opinion. And if
it’s true, you shouldn’t panic. There are lots of ways they can
monitor pregnancies in women your age. You really shouldn’t have a
problem with it at all.”

“
Claire!” Phil’s tone was just short of
a howl.

Shock broke Mandy’s vow of neutrality. “Don’t
you want it?” she demanded.

“
I don’t know.” Phil’s whispered words
wobbled, choked by tears.

“
You don’t mean that,” Claire
said.

“
You may recall,” said Phil in a voice
suddenly rock steady and as tart as dry ice, “that I’m the woman
who chose running my father’s business over being married to Brad.
That doesn’t say much for my maternal instincts. Not to mention
that Garrett is old enough to be a grandfather,” she ended on a
hiccup, raising the ice water for another frantic gulp.

“
Jamie’s nine years older than Bubba,”
Claire said, “and he absolutely loves him. Slade and Melanie will
probably be thrilled.”

“
Not only are Slade and Melanie in
college,” Phil retorted, “but all they’re going to see is their
inheritance going down the drain.”

“
You know perfectly well the ranch
could support a baker’s dozen,” Claire snapped. “You’re making a
crisis out of what ought to be a happy surprise.”

“
Surprise? Garrett will probably have a
heart attack!”

“
I doubt it,” said Claire. “If nothing
else, it’ll probably bring in quite a few votes.”

“
Claire!” Phil’s pale lips quirked in
incipient hysteria.

“
Face it, Phil,” Claire persisted,
“fathering a baby at his age will make Garrett Mr. Macho of Calusa
County. He ought to be reelected in a landslide.”

“
It’s
embarrassing,
” Phil groaned.

“
Well . . .,” Claire ventured, moving
on to practicalities, “you’re not going to like being pregnant. In
fact, I suspect you’ll hate it. The middle months won’t be bad, but
you’ll hate being sick and you’ll hate being huge. It’s just not in
you to tolerate anything short of perfection. But you’ve got to
remember nine months isn’t so much to endure for the end result.
You’ll love that miniature Garrett/Phil combo. And Garrett will
surround you with so many nurses and nannies you’ll be able to do
exactly as much work as you want to do. For God’s sake, Phil,
nobody’s going to expect you to stay barefoot and
pregnant.

It’s just nine months to endure, in return
for pleasure for the rest of your life.”

“
Yours aren’t teenagers yet,” Phil
responded gloomily.

“
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Phil, you ought
to be thrilled.”

“
They just need love,” Mandy
interjected earnestly. “Lots of love.”

Phil’s head came up; she reached for a tissue
from the box Claire kept in a needlepoint container on her desk.
After vigorously blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, she made a
startling about-face. “I can do that,” she declared firmly. “I was
terrified of the whole thing, but I guess Mandy’s right. It comes
down to love. I know you think I’m cold, Claire, but I love
Garrett, I really do, and I can love his child. And mine. And
you’re right that I won’t have to worry about being the
picture-perfect stay-at-home mom. We all know I’m not cut out for
it. But”—Phil was obviously reassuring herself more than her
listeners—“the love requirement I can handle.”

Mandy and Claire flashed encouraging smiles.
Until Phil groaned, “Oh, God, I still can’t imagine what Slade and
Melanie are going to think.”

“
They’re going to think what they
thought when you and Garrett announced you were getting married,”
Claire retorted. “That there’s life in the old boy yet.”

All three women dissolved into chuckles,
although Phil’s laugh was a bit watery.

“
I made enough tuna salad for an army,”
Mandy said to Phil. “Would you like to stay for lunch?”

“
Yes.” Phil sighed, wiping away a final
tear. “Yes, thanks. I’d like that very much.”

She should be working. Mandy sat slumped on
the sofa on Peter’s deck, gently rocking and watching a blue heron
stalk a small black lizard that was sunning itself on the far end
of the massive deck. Since Peter had fallen into the habit of
feeding leftovers to the giant birds, it wasn’t at all unusual to
find a variety of feathered beggars on the outer portion of the
rear deck. This one, apparently giving up in disgust when no
handouts appeared, had reverted to catching his own.

“
Problem?”

Mandy gasped. The heron whooshed away on a
great rush of wings, the lizard scurrying into the safety of the
carved scrollwork in the deck’s railing.

“
Sorry,” Peter apologized, “I didn’t
mean to startle you.”

“
Why aren’t you working?” Mandy
demanded.

“
And it’s a pleasure to see you too,”
Peter mocked. “Come on now, Mouse. You took a long lunch and worked
about five minutes after you came back. So what’s up?”

“
And how would you know, up there in
your skydome?”

“
Oh, I know more than you think,” Peter
intoned, very wise.

Silence stretched. The heron, spotting the
source of his customary goodies, swooped back, followed shortly by
a snowy-plumed egret and an equally large bird Mandy had never seen
before. It was, she concluded after several moments of incredulous
examination, the ugliest bird she had ever seen in her life. Nearly
as large as the great blue heron, its long orange-red beak curved
inward like a scythe below a face only a mother could love. This
was a creature that made the Ugly Duckling look beautiful. “What on
earth is that?” she asked.

“
Ibis. The American stork,” Peter added
with a noticeable smirk.

Stork. It
would
be a stork. Mandy leaned back against the
sofa and closed her eyes.

“
Is that the problem?” Peter asked, his
voice as smooth as silk, his ability to read her mind seemingly
undiminished by the years. “You’ve fallen for Baby Bubba, haven’t
you?”

“
No,” Mandy lied. “It’s . . . I ran
into someone who’s unhappy because she’s pregnant. I could
understand it if she had several children already or couldn’t
afford it, but . . . well, that wasn’t the case. So, yes, I felt
bad about it.”

“
Because you want one of your
own.”

“
I suppose,” Mandy muttered.

“
I know how you can get one,” Peter
offered blandly.

If he had a mustache, he’d
be twirling it.
“Gee, thanks, I’ll keep that in
mind.”

“
Always happy to oblige. Ready,
willing, able, and all that.”

Was it possible, Mandy wondered, for a woman
to file a sexual harassment suit against her own husband?

She got up, grabbed her purse from the
office, and went home. She could do her research on her laptop in
the RV almost as well as she could in Peter’s posh
accommodations.

And, besides, in the RV it was easier to
breathe.

Why she woke up in the cold darkness of six
in the morning Mandy never knew. She squinted at the steady red
glow of the digital numbers, winced, rolled over and tried to go
back to sleep. Gradually, she realized she was as wide awake as if
she’d already consumed her second cup of coffee. Adrenalin was
flowing. And for absolutely no reason. Sure, she had some problems
preying on her mind. One, in particular, rather large, rugged, and
persistent. But this wide-awake, there’s-something-you’ve-got-to-do
feeling seemed unrelated to her personal crisis with Peter.

What?
Mandy
silently demanded of the unresponding air
.
It’s pitch black out there. Cold. Damp. And full of critters.
Dammit, I don’t want to get up!

In the end she crawled out, pulled on jeans,
sweater and denim jacket, grabbed a flashlight, and staggered down
the steep steps of the RV. At the bottom she paused, the hair on
the back of her neck prickling. Something was wrong. She shined her
powerful flashlight in a slow arc around her. Nothing. No critters.
No humans. Just grass, trees, and RVs. The night was cold, crisp,
and quiet.

Imagination on overtime. Again. Mandy took a
trudging step forward and abruptly stopped. The recorder. Foolish
to think she was going to need it, and yet . . . Mandy questioned
her sanity as she climbed back inside and picked up the recorder in
its fancy leather case.

The night was cold, the residents of Calusa
Campground peacefully sleeping in their warm, cozy beds. And here
was Mandy Armitage, creeping through the dark on a ridiculous
dead-of-night wild goose chase.

By the time she reached the river, there was
a hint of predawn light to the east, but not enough to see fifty
yards upriver. Mandy eyed the aluminum johnboats with disgust. The
cold was going to rise up through the soles of her shoes and the
seat of her pants, transforming her into a shivering mass of flesh
long before she got to Nadya’s favorite fallen tree.