Paradise Burning (30 page)

Grass.

Mandy stared blankly at the sand where the
lizard had been. She was outdoors? What on earth was she doing
sleeping outdoors? No wonder she was uncomfortable and scratchy.
And probably bitten in a hundred different places. This was, after
all, Florida.

Florida. Peter.
She’d been with Peter. Last night.

Was it last night? Last week? Or in some
dreamtime of imagination?

Mandy squeezed her eyes tight shut against
the glare, willed her brain to function. She was an analyst, for
God’s sake. A highly paid, top-of-the-line researcher for Armitage,
Kingsley & Associates. If she couldn’t figure out what she was
doing here—wherever here was—she might as well pack it all in and
retire. So . . .

Fact.
She was
outdoors in what appeared to be early morning. In Florida. In
March. Not freezing, but not a degree over fifty. Her goosebumps
had goosebumps.

Fact two.
She
was lying with her cheek on hard-packed sand. Though how or why she
got here was a mystery.

Fact three.
The
irregular lumps biting into her skin were probably pebbles and sea
shells, which were part and parcel of all sand in Florida’s
frequently deceptive paradise.

Fact four.
The
nasty little pinpricks that were rapidly developing into stinging
torment as sensation returned were undoubtedly due to Florida’s
host of insect life. Hopefully only from the six-legged variety.
Not those with eight legs. Or fangs.

Fact five.
Fact
five . . . Mandy searched for something, anything, concrete to keep
away the nightmare she sensed lay just out of reach.
Fact five.
The sun was bright, but
the air was still cool, a lingering reminder that the night before
had been cold. Shivering, biting, teeth-rattling cold. She may have
been unconscious, but her body remembered.

Yet before the cold and sand and pebbles, the
shells, and the lizard?

Before was Peter.

They had gone somewhere . . . Mandy
wrestled with her numbed brain. Peter. Research . . . no,
courtship. They’d driven into the city. To the ballet.
Madame Butterfly
. Later, they’d
stopped at a club for drinks, shared a platter of nachos. They’d
watched the frenetic, almost blind, intensity of the dancers
sparkling beneath shooting glints of light from the revolving
mirrored ball overhead.

And then . . . nothing. She was sitting with
Peter at the club. And then she was lying on cold sand, the signals
to her brain so scrambled she was unable to move.

Mandy heard a forlorn sound. Herself.
Whimpering.

How little it had taken to reduce her to
bewildered infancy. She could almost hear her father’s snort of
derision.

She was lying here, whimpering, when
Peter might need her. Shivering and feeling sorry for herself when
Peter could be—no, she wouldn’t think dead!
Just move, girl. Up, up, up!

Mandy’s fingers flexed, her toes wiggled.
Eyelids opened.

Nothing but sand and grass. The lizard was
gone. Slowly, very slowly, ignoring the incipient nausea, Mandy
placed her palms flat on the sand, pushed until she was
semi-upright. A bit more canted than the leaning tower of Pisa, she
thought sourly, but she was making progress.

She was on hard-packed sand, which seemed to
be part of a road to nowhere. Beyond the few feet of straggling
grass on each side of the road, she could see nothing but Florida
wilderness. A solid jungle of palmetto, pine, live oak, cabbage
palms, and ubiquitous bushes.

When Mandy tried to turn her head to look
around, she almost lost it. Her balance, as well as what was left
of the nachos from the night before.

Peter. Have to find Peter.

She clung to the thought as her head swam and
her stomach roiled. When the world stopped spinning, she began to
inch her body into a turn, scrunching over the sand and shells,
furious at the effort it took to do something as simple as search
the circle around her. And why was turning on the sand so miserably
uncomfortable?

Oh God, oh God, oh God! She
was naked
. Without a stitch. Her skin was stark white
against the sandy road. Bare. Exposed.

Totally vulnerable.

Frantically, Mandy swiveled her head,
searching for her clothes. Her stomach promptly revolted. When she
was able to lift her head from the vile mess already sinking into
the sand, she discovered she felt better. Sour, horrible, bitten,
humiliated . . . but the miasma of nightmare and fear had lifted.
During that disastrous swivel of her head she hadn’t seen her
clothes, but she’d found Peter.

With great care Mandy focused on the portion
of the Florida jungle that had been behind her head when she woke.
Peter, all magnificent six feet-two inches of him was standing in
calf-high grass at the edge of the trees doing . . . something.
Mandy squinted, regretfully adding her glasses to the list of the
missing.

It was not wishful thinking. It was Peter
Pennington in the flesh. Completely in the flesh. Leanly rugged,
with the warm glow of a tan that made his naked body appear
considerably less vulnerable than Mandy felt. Shading her eyes
against the eastern sun, which was flirting with the tree tops, she
stared across the thirty feet of sand and grass that separated
them.

Peter was quite beautiful. Even for a man on
the wrong side of thirty-five. She skipped the familiar face, which
triggered such painful mixed emotions, and concentrated on the
ripple of muscles in well-toned arms, the soft mat of dark chest
hair that glistened in the sun, V-ing to thighs and adjacent parts
so well sculptured Michelangelo and Leonardo would have loved him .
. .

Appalled, Mandy sunk her teeth into her lower
lip, almost grateful for the pain. No one knew better than she that
Peter Pennington was no hero. And yet, if she had to choose a
companion to be stuck with in the middle of nowhere without a
stitch to wear . . .

She squeezed her eyes shut as a tear slipped
out, rolling down her cheek, dripping off her chin. She felt the
cool path of a matching tear from the other eye. Peter was okay. He
was here. Whatever had happened, they had both lived through
it.

“
You all right?”

Mandy’s goosebumps rose another notch. Her
eyes snapped open. Peter was squatting on his heels beside her, the
anxiety in his eyes about as far from his customary sangfroid as
she had ever seen.

“
Freeze-dried. Probably going to be
sunburned . . . but alive is good.”

Peter’s amber eyes glowed softly. His fingers
touched her moist cheek. “That’s my girl. Do you remember what
happened?”

Mandy scowled. The blank wall in her mind
was, in itself, terrifying. Let alone finding herself naked out
back of beyond. “Not a thing,” she admitted. “We were sitting in
the club, then . . . here.”

“
After the second drink.” Peter nodded.
“It didn’t hit me quite so fast. I’ve got quite a few pounds on
you. I remember two men coming up, slapping me on the back like old
friends, big laughs, but I couldn’t react, couldn’t talk, couldn’t
resist. They just took us by the arm and walked us out of there.
After that . . . I don’t remember a thing either.”

“
Was one of them my Iranian? I have a
vague recollection of catching a glimpse of him at the
club.”

“
Not Middle-Eastern. More like Russian
thugs.”

Mandy heaved a sigh that ended on a shiver.
At the moment, just who had drugged and abandoned them in the
wilderness seemed remarkably unimportant. “So what do we do
now?”

Peter managed a wary grin. “Well, right now,
we try these on for size.”

He had to be kidding. Mandy goggled at the
two large leaves from an elephant’s ear plant that he was holding
up for her inspection. The “skirt”—more aptly described as a round
green loincloth–-was skimpy, even by the standards of a topless
club, and held together by a vine of some kind. She sincerely hoped
it wasn’t poison ivy.

“
I made a bra too,” Peter was saying
proudly, displaying two smaller leaves, also held together by
vines.

Mandy scowled at the saucer-sized
greenery. Naturally, for
her
breasts Peter had used smaller leaves. Much smaller. “Okay,
so where’re the snake and the apple?” she snapped.

“
Be nice, Mouse. I worked damned hard
on these things.”

For the first time Mandy noticed Peter was
already wearing one of his own creations. Similar to the lower body
covering he had made for her, it was composed of two large leaves
whose decency depended on the complete absence of a breeze.

“
I can’t,” Mandy stated flatly, shaking
her head. “No way. I’d rather stay here and starve.”

With careful precision Peter laid his leafy
creations on the sandy road. “I can’t believe Jeffrey Armitage’s
daughter said that,” he taunted.

“
That was my Grandmother Armitage and
my Grandmother Kingsley talking,” Mandy admitted, making a wry
face.

“
Yeah, well, it’s about time you
started taking after Jeff and Eleanor. They’re tough as nails, both
of them. Eleanor may not be one of my favorite people but, believe
me, she’d walk out of here stark naked and hail the first passing
motorist without blinking an eye. She’s Eleanor Kingsley Armitage,
and to hell with the rest of the world.”

Mandy closed her eyes, felt the warmth of the
sun coming up over the tree tops. He was right, damn him,
absolutely right.

Gently, Peter drew Mandy to her feet,
enfolded her in the warmth of his arms, flesh to flesh. They were
alive, basically unhurt. They might not know where they were or
which way was home, but they had each other. Any morning he could
feel Mandy skin to skin—the exposed contours of their bodies
fitting together like puzzle pieces—couldn’t be all bad.

A shadow flicked over the ribbon of sandy
road. Peter tightened his hold on Mandy, looked up. Four ominous
black shapes swooped overhead. Vultures. He could only hope Mandy
didn’t notice.

Time to move. Carefully, Peter studied the
recent tire tracks, choosing to walk north instead of south. If
he’d guessed wrong, they were walking deeper into the heart of
nowhere.

High above the treetops the vultures, balked
of their prey, gave up their vigil and swept away in search of
creatures showing less signs of life than the two-legged animals
walking with determined, if barefoot, steps down a deserted back
road.

Two miles later, after passing from pine
forest into open pastureland, the distinct sounds of tires whirring
on asphalt reached their ears. Peter and Mandy increased their
lagging pace to a near jog. As they arrived, breathless, at the
crossroads, Peter’s madly waving arms set his elephant ear leaves
swaying alarmingly. The car they had been trying to beat to the
intersection swerved to the far side of the road, overcorrected in
a squeal of tires and wobbled off, accelerating rapidly as it moved
away. Mandy clutched her leaves as the backlash caught her. She
gulped back a sob.

The road, one of Florida’s perfectly straight
two-lane roads through uninhabited ranchland, was not well
traveled. The next vehicle, a van, slowed down long enough to take
a good look, then sped away, accelerating even more rapidly than
the first. When they saw the next car coming, Peter marched out to
the center of the road, raised his hands over his head, and simply
stood there. Mandy longed for bushes she could slink into, but only
barbed wire was available. So she simply stood there, holding down
her leaves, back and front, mentally shrinking into the smallest
ball she could imagine.

Naturally, it was a rusty, battered pickup
truck that pulled to a halt five feet from Peter’s determined
stance. They probably would have stopped anyway, Mandy realized as
she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. Lincolns and
Cadillacs, probably even Toyotas, passed by on the other side. The
occupants of pickup trucks—redneck, cracker, or cowhunter—were left
to be the good Samaritans of this world.

Mandy couldn’t hear the conversation, but
Peter’s gesticulations were eloquent. In a matter of moments she
was enveloped in the shirt belonging to the taller of their two
rescuers and Peter was tying the other man’s shirt around his
waist. Then, miraculously, they were both huddled inside the cab
next to the driver while one of the two rescuers cheerfully joined
the hunting dog in the bed of the truck. Mandy turned her head into
Peter’s shoulder and shook.

She was still shaking when the pickup came to
a stop in front of a cement block house that seemed to have
sprouted from the side of an ancient trailer. Also surrounding the
dusty clearing were two tin-roofed cement block outbuildings and a
straggling collection of rusting farm equipment, all neatly tucked
under the only cluster of trees for miles. Apparently, not all
ranches and farms in the area were mega enterprises like Wade
Whitlaw’s.

A feminine face. Shock. Sympathy. Mandy
allowed herself to be led into the house, fussed over, clothed in a
T-shirt and jeans only one size too large and three inches short.
She was so grateful she felt well-enough dressed to attend a
charity ball. A mound of scrambled eggs and bacon miraculously
appeared. Coffee. Marvelous, wonderful coffee. The smell alone was
enough to revive her frozen spirit.

Peter, who was nearly the same size as the
driver of the pickup, looked almost normal as he sat down to eat in
his borrowed clothes. “I’ve called the police,” he announced around
a mouthful of eggs. “Fortunately, we’re still in Calusa County.
They’re sending a deputy right away. But the Sheriff’s Department
has to get permission from the Manatee Bay cops to give us a ride
back to town.”