Shadowed Paradise (17 page)

But sunlight burned. She wasn’t ready.
A bud was closed, sealed tight. Safe. A flower was exposed. To sun
and wind and storms.
No, no, no!
Concentrate
. Brad was saying
something.

“
Look, Claire, I’m not going to rape
you, seduce you, or even coax. If you think that, you don’t
remember that sad excuse for a kiss we exchanged right here on this
couch last week.” Brad removed his palms from her cheeks, held them
away from his body.
Look, Ma, no
hands
. “Did I press you for more? No way. You’ve had
holy hell dumped on you. You’re worn so thin I’ve been afraid you’d
crumble to dust at the first touch. Until now I didn’t know why,
but my instincts are damn good, so I didn’t push it. And I’m not
going to push it now. Not that I don’t want to jump your bones,” he
conceded magnanimously, “but I figure you’re worth waiting
for.”

Of course he was willing to wait, Claire
thought. A man who’d had Diane Lake wasn’t going to have his libido
whipped into overtime by Claire Langdon. So he was offering what?
Friendship? A comfort snuggle? A mercy fuck?

Claire looked up to find Brad’s large capable
fingers stretched toward her like a horse trainer working with a
recalcitrant colt. She resented the analogy. “No coaxing,” she
snapped. “You promised.”

The hand stayed where it was. “I don’t
believe I promised no touching,” he pointed out with annoying
reasonableness, making no attempt to hide the gleam of mischief
dancing in his eyes. “How about a handshake to seal our
bargain?”

“
What bargain?”

“
That we’re going to give each other
aid and comfort.”

“
And just how did you arrive at that
conclusion?”

“
Improvisation.” The hand never
wavered.

She was thirty-three years old, and except
for Jim Langdon this was the only man to whom she had been drawn by
an overwhelming attraction. A man like this was unlikely to come
her way again. And there was Jamie. How could she reject the
possibility of a man like Brad in his life? However ephemeral that
hope might be. However many reservations she might have.

Carpe diem
.
Seize the day. Jamie was as good an excuse as any for doing what
her body was so desperately demanding.

But she wouldn’t give in easily. “I suppose
you trained skittish colts somewhere in your checkered past.”

“
Yeah . . . but they were a lot easier
to tame.”

Now was the time. The ball was in her corner.
Slowly, tentatively, Claire, touched a finger to Brad’s palm,
traced a small spiral.

He sucked in his breath, gritted his teeth.
He wasn’t going to move. He wasn’t going to blow it now. No
way.

Deserting his palm, Claire’s fingers walked
up the inside of his bare arm. Considerably more than his biceps
twitched.

In strangled tones he muttered a warning.
“Claire! You don’t know what—”

“
Oh, yes, I do.” She touched her lips
to his. A brief butterfly kiss and then she was away, back to the
far end of the couch, hands folded primly in her lap. From under
lowered lashes she said, “That was an IOU. Maybe this weekend . . .
?”

He wouldn’t sleep all night and he bet she
knew it. Claire Langdon was about as helpless as a piranha. “I’ll
call you,” he muttered, and fled along the deck, down the outside
stairs and into the night.

Paula Marks was no one’s fool. She’d even
snatched a few hot listings out from under Phil Tierney’s nose. She
hated sitting Open Houses. Stupid waste of time. Nine years in real
estate and she’d never written a contract as the result of an Open
House.

And today was worse than usual. Everyone must
still be recovering from the holiday. She’d thought to try Saturday
for a change. Brilliant! She had yet to see anyone other than a
nosy neighbor.

She’d kept busy on the phone, chatting up her
owners, letting them know she was on the job. Real estate was not a
profession for those who loathed the telephone.

A blast of hot air brought Paula’s sagging
sales instincts surging to the fore. She smiled blindly into the
sunlight silhouetting the figure in the doorway.

“
I hope it was all right to just walk
in?” A rich baritone, polite, sincere.

The door closed, shutting out the brilliant
light and heat, and there he was. Handsome, smiling, well dressed.
Alone. Just what a single woman needed in the midst of a boring
Saturday afternoon.

Paula wound up her phone conversation
fast. She advanced across the room, hand outstretched in greeting.
“I’m Paula Marks,” she declared warmly. “Sorry to keep you waiting.
This is a three bedroom. Is that the size home you’re looking
for?”
Okay, Paula, so you’re fishing. He
probably knows it too. You could have been a bit more subtle about
finding out if he’s after a home for the wife and
kiddies.

“
I’m flexible,” the man replied easily.
“There’s only me. I’m just looking for something I like that I can
actually afford.” He smiled. A confiding,
you-understand-the-bottom-line sort of smile. “What’s the
price?”

He considered her reply. “A bit steep,” he
conceded, “but I’ll look around anyway. You never can tell.”

Incredible. Paula attempted to stifle a
rush of arousal. His eyes roamed her figure, his body language
blatantly provocative. Almost as if he radiated some secret
aphrodisiac. What his mouth said was the merest commonplace. What
she was hearing was:
What are you doing for
dinner tonight?

Paula had had exactly three dates since her
divorce the year before. Soulful eyes—bedroom eyes—could not to be
ignored. “Why don’t I just show you around?” she purred.

“
I’d like that.” With a gallant sweep
of his hand, and a look that sent a wave of heat rushing to her
already flushed face, he gestured for her to lead the
way.

By the time they entered the master suite
Paula was holding on to her dignity by a thread. Only years of
experience brought coherent sentences from her dazed mind and
palpating body. “The master suite takes a kingsize bed without
crowding,” she spouted automatically. “Notice the luggage shelf in
the walk-in closet.”

He dogged her footsteps, invaded her personal
space. His breath caressed the back of her neck.

Paula darted into the master bath and put her
back to the wall. There was, after all, a limit to this sort of
thing. They couldn’t very well jump into bed with Open House arrows
in bright vermilion pointing the world straight to the front door.
Dear God, she hadn’t thought she was this vulnerable . . . this
man-hungry. It was embarrassing.

“
You’ll notice there’s a separate
shower and the tub doubles as a whirlpool.” Her voice resounded,
hoarse and breathless. She was sure she was turning
purple.

He glanced politely at the spacious
bathroom’s amenities, then turned and smiled. It was a lovely
smile, a you’re-so-good kind of smile. So why did her arousal—and
shame—suddenly turn to terror?

No time to analyze the feral gleam that
animated his face. Blind instinct sent Paula dashing for the
door.

She never made it.

He grabbed her arm. Using her own momentum
against her, he slung her backward toward the square tub, then head
first into the unyielding ceramic of the toilet tank. Stunned, she
crumpled onto the mauve-streaked tiles, her head coming to rest at
an awkward angle against the bidet.

He was still smiling when he clamped his
hands around her throat.

He no longer had any doubts. He preferred his
women dead.

Claire grasped Jamie by both hands and swung
him in wide circles around her in the waist-deep water. The soft
swell of an incoming wave rose over his head. Jamie came up
grinning and shouting, “More, more!”

“
Either you’re getting too big or I’m
getting too old,” Claire gasped, dropping his hands as she panted
for breath. “Last year this was easy, but I think you’re going to
have to make your own whirlies from now on.”

“
Aw, mom, you’re not
that
old.”

“
I am infinitely old,” Claire
pronounced, raising her aching arms to wring the water out of her
dripping hair.

“
You’ve got a boyfriend.”

Claire eyed her son sharply. He was a
miniature of Jim Langdon in more ways than looks. Jamie was being
perfectly reasonable. Mom had a boyfriend. Therefore she wasn’t yet
over the hill. “Maybe we’d better talk about that,” she said.
“Let’s go find our towels, okay?”

“
Sure.” Jamie swam the few strokes
necessary to bring him to knee-deep water, then splashed happily
through the gentle surf, scampering ahead of her over the hot sand
until he reached the place where they had spread their beach
towels.

When they’d dried off and added a new layer
of sunscreen, Claire ran her hands through the pile of shells,
sharks’ teeth, and small polished rocks Jamie had collected
earlier. She was stalling for time. Thinking hard. This was a new
experience. How do you ask your son for permission to go on a date?
No, that wasn’t all of it. She wanted his approval for far more
than that. And if Jamie said he hated Brad Blue, what would she do?
But he didn’t hate Brad. She knew she was safe, so she didn’t
hesitate to ask. Pure sophistry.

Yet Jamie’s opinion
did
make a difference. She had all but promised a
physical commitment to Brad. A commitment for which she wasn’t
ready. If Jamie was only putting on an act . . . if he had doubts
about Brad, any doubts at all, then that would be her excuse. Her
reason to run.

The truth was, she was panicking. She was
scraping the bottom of the barrel when she was ready to use an
eight-year-old as a buffer in the age-old game of man vs.
woman.

With a start, Claire realized Jamie was still
sitting on the towel, his solemn eyes—so like his father’s—fixed on
her face, waiting for her to speak. “You like Brad, don’t you?”
Claire began, making an effort to keep her voice perfectly
neutral.

“
Gram says you’ve got a date tonight.
You going out with him alone?” Jamie’s tone was wistful.

“
Uh–yes.” That Jamie already considered
them a family, a threesome, had not occurred to her. “Do you
mind?”

“
Gram says if we’re going to get Brad
for a new father, you have to be alone with him sometimes. So I
guess it’s okay.” Jamie’s lower lip stuck out but did not quiver.
“Maybe you’ll take me next time?”

Claire let out a long breath. “So you like
Brad?”

“
Gram says I have to be real good so
he’ll want us both.”

“
James Thomas Langdon, I want a
straight answer. This minute. Do you really like Brad?”

“
Don’t be silly, mom. ’Course I like
him. Gram says you’re real lucky to find him.”

“
Frankly, Jamie,” Claire retorted,
“Brad Blue would be very lucky to get
us
.” And she was going to have a few things to
say to Ginny Bentley, grandmother or no grandmother.

Jamie favored his mother with an impish grin.
“I think Gram wants you to get married right away. She says I’m
wearing her down.”

The heat suffusing Claire’s face had nothing
to do with the hot July sun baking the beach and the people on it.
“Jamie, it’s only a date,” she murmured. “And you still haven’t
answered my question.”

“
You can go out with him alone all you
want if that’s what it takes to get married,” Jamie replied
magnanimously. “And, yeah, I like him. Okay?”

“
Okay,” Claire breathed. She couldn’t
imagine what had made her think her relationship with Brad Blue was
private. A fragile budding romance needed slow advances, careful
nourishing, an establishment of trust. Yet her own
family—
her own family
, for
heaven’s sake—had them wedded and bedded and . . .

Bedded, then wedded . . . ?

Claire groaned, burying her head in her
hands. For a long time she stared at the treasures in the bottom of
Jamie’s pail. Pastel coquina shells, tiny cat’s paws, the black of
petrified sharks’ teeth millions of years old. That was how she
felt. A million years old. With a great white shark hovering,
waiting, watching. Expecting a commitment. Looking for . . . what?
Sex? A wife? Family? Children?

She’d call Brad and say she couldn’t go.
She’d suffered sunburn. Heatstroke.

Her family saw her as a husband-hunter. Dear
Lord, what did Brad see?

Easy widow? Another notch on his bedpost?
Faithful wife? Mother of his children?

Only time would tell.

By Saturday night Claire was searching
frantically for flaws in the Blue façade. The ex-fed Florida farm
boy could not be as perfect as he looked. She dug in her heels
against Brad’s calm assumption that their relationship was going to
develop according to his personal agenda. She was not, absolutely
not, going to be bulldozed by Brad Blue’s overwhelming charisma.
Something had to be wrong with the man.
Something
had to turn up to protect her from the
consequences of her promised—tentatively promised—folly.

It wasn’t going to be his home. When Brad
drove through a gate in a high stone wall and plunged them into the
cool beauty of green lawns and tropical gardens, Claire’s first
sight of Palm Court reduced her to inarticulate awe. As they
emerged from the dappled shade of a driveway lined by graceful cane
palms, a castle stretched out before them. A sprawling
Mediterranean villa complete with red barrel tile roof. Set on a
promontory considerably wider than Virginia’s Bentley’s, Palm Court
towered over Golden Beach Bay and the one-story ranch-style homes
hovering beside it, like an elephant surrounded by ant hills.