Paradise Burning (32 page)

“
Surely you know I would not risk the
girls, my true friends? Or you?” Nadya added on a whisper. She slid
to her knees, clasped him tight about the legs, laying her head
between his thighs. “How could I ever betray you?”
May God strike me dead!
The reality
of what she had done was like a stab to the heart. She wanted to
curl up in a ball and fade into oblivion.

Instead, she reached for Karim’s zipper. She
had learned a great many lessons since becoming a whore.

“
Fuck!” Delilah’s dark eyes filled with
anguish, her hands clenched into fists. Fawn, who had not cried
since she was twelve, ducked her head, the drink Peter had ordered
blurring before her suddenly misted eyes.

Ignoring Peter’s protests, Mandy had
accompanied him to Max’s strip club. She leaned toward the girls,
torn between the sorrow and guilt of bearing bad news and hoping
the message would be clear enough to save these two from a similar
fate. “We were afraid you might not have recognized Jade from the
newspaper article, that’s why we came,” Mandy said, settling for
the simple truth. “And we wanted to make sure everything was all
right with you both.” She summoned a genuine smile. “It was great
to see you up there dancing, Delilah. You’ve really got the
moves.”

Full lips turned up in a quirky smile,
half-pleased, half-embarrassed. “Yeah, thanks. It sure beats
walking the streets.”

“
If . . .” Mandy paused, wondering if
an offer of help would be taken as criticism. She blinked, took a
deep breath, and plunged ahead. “If you ever want to get your GED,
change your line of work, call me.” She shoved a card with her cell
phone number across the table to each girl. “I mean it. I’ll find a
way to make it possible.”

“
That goes for me too,” Peter added,
handing over his card as well.

The two girls—one so fair, the other the
color of dark chocolate—stared back, as if trying to gauge their
sincerity. Delilah broke first, shoving the cards in with the bills
sticking out of her G-string.

Fawn scowled, stuck up her chin. “Guess you
mean it. Don’t be surprised if I hold you to it.”

After several moments of pregnant silence,
Peter lifted his glass. Four drinks clinked together above the
center of the small round table. “To a better life,” Peter
murmured.

“
A-men!” breathed Delilah.

“
Did you send the clothes back?” Peter
asked.

“
Plus enough cash to put a smile on the
dog’s face,” Mandy replied, recalling with warmth the kindness of
their rescuers. Once again, she and Peter were snuggled down at
opposite ends of the blue leather couch. Across the room a gas-log
fire was giving off a cozy warmth, though Mandy longed for the
crackle and tangy smoke of genuine wood.

Giving up her new-found independence and
moving in with Peter had not been an easy decision to make, but
Jeff and Eleanor Armitage hadn’t raised a fool. Independence was
all well and good, but then there was foolhardy. Living with Peter
might be an emotional risk, but he was the clear winner in a
classic choice between the Devil You Don’t Know versus the Devil
You Do.

“
I’ve been thinking . . .” Peter
ventured, his slitted amber eyes catching glints from the steady
glow of the fire.

“
Um-m?”

“
Doug’s probably right. You shouldn’t
be going out alone. You know . . . post office, groceries, the
library. Not until we get this mess straightened out.”

“
Golden Beach in broad daylight. You’ve
got to be kidding!”

“
You heard Doug. We’re likely dealing
with the Russian mafia here. These aren’t small-time local crooks,
Mouse. They’re rough, tough, and dangerous. Hell, they snatched us
right out of a club in front of hundreds of people.”

“
I gave up the RV. What more do you
want?” The RV was her independence. She loved that RV. But there it
sat at Calusa Campground, empty, while she was here, moved into the
beautiful blue and green bedroom, with lace-trimmed sheets that
still had not been slept on.

All right, so she was spending her nights on
Peter’s black satin sheets. It didn’t mean anything. Propinquity. A
convenient affair. The great experiment. Or maybe just a Hail Mary
pass. And about as likely to succeed.

Something nudged her knee. From under lowered
lashes Mandy sneaked a peek. Since Peter was six feet-two and she
was five-nine, not even the luxurious extent of the French blue
leather couch could hold both their outstretched lengths. Peter’s
lower legs had been dangling over onto the floor, but now his left
leg had crept up, was playing “kneesies” with hers. Mandy frowned.
Sex was one thing. Being playful was something else. This was
altogether too much like the old days when they were first married.
Well and truly married. Maybe even in love.

Mandy clamped her knees together, leaned them
tight against the back of the couch. Peter obligingly stretched
both legs into the vacated space, pinning her into the corner by
setting his bare feet in her lap.. “Comfy?” he inquired
silkily.

Comfy?
She was
panic-stricken, her heart hammering like a teen virgin discovering
her date had turned into an octopus.

Peter leaned back against the soft leather.
“I think it’s time we had a little talk,” he announced.

Mandy turned her head away, staring at the
red glow of the fireplace. What had happened to having a nice
comfortable affair? Sex, yes; talk, no. She should protest, but her
jaws seemed to be wired shut.

“
All right, here’s the truth, flat
out,” Peter declared. “We’ve been through the excuses,
explanations,
mea culpas
, so
let’s get to the heart of it without the frills. “I’ve been
selfish, ambitious, insensitive, and unfaithful—though never while
we were living together, I hasten to add. And after New York . . .
after New York I was celibate for more than two fucking years.
Believe it or not.”

Really?
After
his ten-second performance that first night in the RV, she could
almost believe him.

“
I’ve mellowed, Mouse. Worked hard on
mending the worst of my faults.”

Mandy’s sniff was close to a snort.

“
Now
you
,” Peter said, his tone shifting from penitent
to documentary mode, “You’re prickly as a porcupine, smarter than
anybody ought to be, sophisticated enough to be a crack electronic
spy, sometimes naive enough to make the angelic choir. You’re also
the only woman I’ve ever wanted to spend my life with. I was more
than fond of you way back when you were a gawky brat, and yours is
the only image permanently etched on my heart. Call me crazy if you
want, but there it is. I figure we’re a matched pair.”

Romantic it wasn’t, Mandy sighed. But honest?
. . . Maybe.

She had to look up, although she already knew
what she would see—amber eyes gleaming with sincerity. Peter’s
back-of-the-bookcover look, the one that turned his words into
proclamations from Mount Sinai, even when they were fiction.

And, sure enough, there it was. Absolute
Truth, or the Big Lie?

But why lie? Why tie himself down to a wife
if he didn’t want one?

“
I want a family, Mouse,” Peter
continued, as if he’d heard her question. “Children, the whole
works. I’ll even attend PTA meetings, I promise. And not be gone
for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations . . .”

“
Let’s not overdo it.” Mandy was
working hard to keep her lips from twitching. The big important
journalist/author was running a nervous hand through the dark
bristles that passed for hair. His earnest expression reminded her
of a ten-year-old who has just brought home a stray puppy.
Honest, mom, I’ll feed him and groom him. He won’t
be any trouble at all.

“
Okay,” he grumbled, “so I might be
gone occasionally.”

Silence.

“
Look at it this way,” Peter declared,
his temper beginning to flare.
What did he
have to do, stand on his head?
“I figure you want kids
too. You’re crazy about Bubba, right? So do you want a divorce so
you can have kids with someone else?”

A blow. A below-the-belt blow. Put that way .
. . there had never been anyone else. Not that Jeff and Eleanor
hadn’t paraded a number of striking young men past her over the
last five years but, truthfully, she’d found them all wanting. Few
had even managed a first date; none, more than two. In her heart
she was—had always been—Mrs. Peter Pennington.

But loving Peter wasn’t enough. Living
together just to have children wasn’t enough.

Tempting, but not enough. Nowhere in Peter’s
pretty speech had he said he loved her. Only that he wanted her to
have his children. Just how far toward pragmatism could a girl
stoop?

Pretty far.

But not yet. Let him suffer.

She
certainly
was.

“
I don’t have any other candidates in
mind,” Mandy pronounced, striving for an airy insouciance she was
far from feeling. “I’ll take your kind offer under
consideration.”

Peter swore, with feeling.

This time Mandy had to duck her head so he
wouldn’t catch the tilt of her lips. Peter was satisfyingly angry
enough as it was. Oh, yes, this was the way she liked it. With the
shoe firmly on the other foot. And so very easy to put a stop to
serious conversation. Keeping her head down, she tweaked the toes
lying in her lap. One by one. She marched her fingers across one
instep, moving up over his khakis, past his knee, dipping toward
his inner thigh. And the bulge that was forming just beyond.

Games. Mindless sex. Anything to keep from
remembering how long she’d loved him. To keep from wondering if
Peter really meant it when he said he wanted to settle down, have a
family . . . She could accommodate herself to that, of course she
could. She was a stiff-upper-lip New England Kingsley-Armitage.
Love wasn’t required. Just compatibility, the right family, the
right connections . . .

Hot damn!
Mandy
had seen guns poking through pockets that looked less hard than
what was tenting Peter’s pants. Could any woman have done this to
him? Or did he really care for her?

At least a little?

Mandy withdrew her hand, tucked her knees up
under her chin.

Silence. Not so much as a long-drawn
sigh.

Peter’s temper flared. “Dammit, Mouse! What
now?” Her head was resting on knees clutched to herself as if to
ward off evil. “Uh . . . Mouse? Do you think you could come back?
I’m dying here.”

“
Good.” She didn’t lift her
head.

“
Mouse!” His voice, having passed from
baritone to tenor, was rapidly edging toward alto. Much more of
this and he was going to be singing soprano. “Woman, I’m
suffering,” Peter pleaded.

“
The problem hasn’t changed,” she said
through slitted lips. “
We’re
compatible. Our jobs aren’t.”

“
Mo-ouse!”

“
Are you coming back to
AKA?”

“
Hell, no!”

“
You expect me to give up my
career?”

“
Yes, dammit, I’d like to see you out
of it. But you’re a computer nerd. You can do what you do
anywhere.”

Mandy lifted her head off her knees, regarded
him with questioning green eyes. “You’d consider a compromise?”

“
If I had to,” Peter breathed.
Anything, anything!

“
I’ll take that under
consideration.”

“
Mouse!” Peter roared. And pounced. Not
easy attacking a wife scrunched into cannonball position,
particularly in the sensitive condition of his advanced state of
arousal. But with only a painful bump or two he managed to pry up
her chin, hold that marvelously open face in his two hands,
searching for some sign of love. Oh, God, yes, she was his. Even if
she wasn’t willing to admit it. Mandy Mouse. The girl he left
behind because he thought she didn’t want to follow him into his
new life as a wanderer. The girl he hadn’t pushed hard because he’d
thought she was better off where she was, instead of chasing with
him to some of the roughest corners of the world.

So they were both fools.

Cupping her firm, stubborn chin between both
his hands, Peter lowered his mouth to hers, gently, tentatively,
waiting for the explosion. She didn’t move a muscle.

The jury was still out. Wiser man that he
was, he broke the kiss, settled for resting his forehead against
hers.

“
Were you kissing your lover or your
wife?” Mandy inquired.

“
Both, I hoped,” he responded, his
voice a hoarse whisper.

“
Don’t push it, Pennington. When I’ve
got all our motivations figured out, I’ll let you know.”

“
Can’t figure out love, Mouse. It
doesn’t work that way.”

“
Love’s the motivation I haven’t pinned
down yet. Nesting instinct, yes. Love . . . maybe.”

Peter groaned. “How can you possibly
doubt—”

Mandy lifted her face until her lips were
brushing his. “Meanwhile, lust will do.” Her hand plunged under his
polo shirt, burned its way upwards. Ten urgent fingers got a grip
on his chest hairs. Peter’s mouth snapped shut. “I’m not wearing a
stitch under this caftan,” she confided in a tone that made his
head swim, “but you’re way too dressed. See that fluffy white rug
in front of the fireplace? Get naked, Pennington. I’ll be
waiting.”