Shadowed Paradise (18 page)

Claire knew through office gossip that Palm
Court was one of the historic mansions built during the heyday of
early development in Golden Beach, but she had to bite her tongue
to keep from asking the obvious: how did Palm Court fall into the
hands of the son of a Russian immigrant and a disinherited
Whitlaw.

“
Pretentious, isn’t it?” Brad remarked
casually, as he braked to a halt in front of a five-car, two-story
garage.

Claire scarcely heard him. She was too busy
taking it all in. The pearly glow of Florida’s short-lived dusk
bathed the house and grounds in an ethereal halo of light. Above
them rose three stories of pink stucco. Extensive gardens nestled
among waving date palms, stately queen palms, and the graceful
curves of multi-trunked cane palms. Oleander, bougainvillea,
hibiscus, and sea grape abounded. Beds of petunias, portulaca and
purslane added more color. Impatiens and bright-leafed caladiums
nestled in the shade of a giant banyan whose long tendrils brushed
the ground, gently swaying in the evening breeze.

You could take the boy off the farm . . .

Either Brad Blue had a green thumb of giant
proportions, or he could afford a full-time gardener. Which Claire
doubted. Mrs. James Langdon of Bedford, New York, was fully
familiar with the cost of professional gardeners. She tried to
picture Brad on his hands and knees to anything, even Mother Earth,
and failed. Perhaps he could afford a gardener after all.

If the house was anything like the grounds .
. .

It was.

They entered through the kitchen, as is the
custom with many waterfront homes. Here there was no sign of the
house’s age. Flowered ceramic knobs gleamed from sparkling white
cabinets offset by silver gray granite countertops. The appliances,
including a solid surface range beneath a built-in microwave, were
also white, as were the broad squares of ceramic tile beneath their
feet. Above them, the ceiling was domed and brilliant with light. A
breakfast nook brightened the far end of the kitchen, its chairs
and curtains matching in a cheerful flower print. Hibiscus bloomed
just outside the three bay windows; and beyond that, the blue of a
small inlet was nearly obscured by a sleek powerboat moored to a
wooden dock.

For Claire, it was love at first sight. “It’s
gorgeous,” she breathed. “I didn’t expect anything so . . . modern
in a house of this vintage.”

“
Lori did it.” Brad paused with his
hand on the refrigerator door, a strange note in his
voice.

“
Lori?”

“
Garrett’s wife. We lost my grandmother
and Lori within a couple years of each other.”

“
I’m sorry,” Claire murmured
automatically, uncomfortable with the inadequacy of her
words.

“
Lori had to go for radiation twice a
day,” Brad explained, “and the ranch is twenty miles inland. This
house was empty, so I offered it to Lori and the kids.”

Brad’s explanation, so carefully casual,
revealed an enigma. Evidently the breach with the Whitlaws wasn’t
quite as wide as Brad sometimes made it appear.

“
Come on, I’ll give you the five-dollar
tour.” Claire suspected he was not only slipping away from
discussing his relatives, but just a bit self-conscious about
living in so much magnificence.

From the kitchen they descended several steps
into a vast room floored with pink and white marble. The area was
large enough to dwarf the concert-size grand piano which occupied
one corner. “It used to be a courtyard,” Brad explained. “I guess
people were hardier back when this was built. My grandmother had it
roofed over about forty years ago.”

“
How old is the house?”

“
Close to ninety. My great-grandmother
Tyree was a Philadelphia girl. As soon as the bridge over the bay
was finished—part of the Tamiami Trail project—she got her husband
to build her a proper house. She spent most of her time here,
though I’m told not even dynamite could get old Jason Tyree off his
ranch. Wade—my grandfather Whitlaw—is just as bad.”

Through a door on the far side of the
enclosed courtyard they moved into the formal living room, which
boasted a graceful sweeping staircase leading up to the second
floor. Just outside the living room was a swimming pool with a
fountain and rocky waterfall at one end.

Perfection, Claire sighed to herself. She had
a sneaking suspicion she now knew how Elizabeth Bennett felt when
she saw Pemberley.

Don’t get carried away, girl. Drooling
doesn’t make it yours. You had one pull on the brass ring. The next
could be just as disastrous.

Time to be cool, even if blatant curiosity
was urging her on. “So how did the family outcast acquire all
this?”

“
We-ll . . .” Brad drawled with the air
of a storyteller settling in for a long tale. He led Claire back
into the courtyard room and seated her on a sofa about the size of
a Lincoln Town Car. After a quick trip to the kitchen for two
glasses of wine, Brad lowered himself into the far corner of the
sofa, one long-fingered hand spread along the elegantly overstuffed
back.

“
The Tyrees were considered newcomers,”
he began. “They came down here from Georgia after Sherman burned
them out.” Brad’s mouth turned up in a marvelous lop-sided grin. “I
must have been twelve before I realized Sherman wasn’t a
four-letter word. “Anyway, none of the ranchers owned title to more
than a few acres. It was all open range. Any man who was handy with
a branding iron could grab himself a pretty good herd of yearlings.
They called them ‘hairy dicks’ by the way. The
yearlings.”

Claire choked on her wine. Tears ran down her
cheeks as Brad thumped her, none too gently, on the back. “You
monster!” she sputtered. “You said that on purpose. Were you trying
to see if I was paying attention?”

“
The funny thing is,” Brad replied,
straight-faced, “I’ve read several books on the good old days and
none of the authors, or any of the old-timers they interviewed,
will admit to having the slightest idea where the name came
from.”

“
You’re kidding,” Claire said flatly,
ducking her head into her hands. “Does that mean I have a dirty
mind?” she moaned to the marble floor.

“
Okay, okay,” Brad chuckled, “I’ll get
back to the Tyrees. It wasn’t long before they were giving the
Whitlaws a run for their money. The rivalry just kept on going down
through the years. Which is why Wade was so anxious to marry Hattie
Tyree. By that time civilization had arrived. Fences, plats, deeds
. . . the whole works. Hattie’s dowry was some prime land on this
side of the Calusa River with an easy ford over from Whitlaw land.
Wade just itched to get his hands on it.”

It was fully dark now, but the twinkle in
Brad’s blue eyes was clearly visible in the glow of a lamp whose
massive proportions matched the room. “And . . . ?” Claire
prompted.

“
The Tyrees weren’t stupid. They tied
the land to Hattie herself, giving her the right to leave it where
she would.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “That’s what you’re
building on!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it?”

“
Wade went so purple when he heard, we
thought he was going to have a seizure for sure. He stomped around
yelling he’d buy the goddamned land, kept offering me money. Even
took out everything in his wallet including his credit cards and
threw them at me. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“
Did Hattie leave you the house
too?”

“
That’s right. The Tyrees were never
comfortable with the house. Hattie’s brothers didn’t want it, so
Hattie’s mother—who considered Wade Whitlaw lower than a
rattlesnake—left it to her daughter. And when Hattie died several
years before I came back to Golden Beach, the house came to me
along with the land.”

“
So you weren’t forgotten after
all.”

“
I’m just sorry my parents didn’t live
long enough to see it. Although . . .” Brad hesitated. “I have a
feeling my mother knew. There was always some secret my folks
shared.” Brad set his wine glass down next to the one he’d taken
from Claire when she choked over hairy dick. “Other than the fact
that they loved each other,” he added quietly.

The lengthening silence was comfortable,
serene. One thing they had in common, Claire realized, was the warm
security of parents who loved each other. The personal knowledge
that marriage could work. Could be beautiful. She was nearly
certain Brad felt the yearning that hovered, unspoken, between them
as much as she. The need for home and family, someone to share the
burden of life. Someone to love.

Beyond the wall of French doors on the west
side of the courtyard room, lights glowed softly from homes across
the inlet. Farther to the west Claire could see the lighted towers
that marked the long line of condominiums along Golden Beach’s
gulffront. What was it like, she wondered, when this was the only
house in the immediate area? When a half mile of palm-lined
driveway leading from the narrow band of the Tamiami Trail, forged
in blood in the twenties, was the only link to civilization? To
Claire, pioneering was something studied in school. Wagon trains,
cattle drives, the first railroads, the Gold Rush. But in Florida
pioneering was something done by the parents and grandparents of
people still living, the stories still fresh in the memories of
their children.

“
You haven’t had your money’s worth,”
Brad announced suddenly, pulling Claire to her feet. “There are a
couple of bedrooms on this floor, and we have two more floors
above.”

The master bedroom suite, Claire discovered,
was palatial, occupying most of the second floor of the Tyree
mansion, the kingsize bed dwarfed by the size of the room. As in
all the first-floor rooms except the kitchen, it boasted a marble
fireplace. French doors opened onto a balcony that had once
overlooked the courtyard. Unfortunately, the balcony had lost some
of its Romeo and Juliet romanticism when the courtyard was roofed
over, but the view was still there. Pool, lawn, dock, boat, the
inlet with its still water, reflecting a touch of moonlight.

Moonlight. Balcony. Bedroom. Highly macho
male.

Brad was watching her, she could feel it. And
that was all she could feel, think, breathe. She was enveloped in
sensation. The romantic beauty of the setting, the erotic pull of
the man, overlaid by her own desperate need for warmth and
security. The urge to give in, give up, be carried away on a tidal
wave of desire was so strong Claire’s hands white-knuckled around
the balcony’s wrought iron railing, clinging for dear life.

No!
Lust wasn’t
on her agenda. Nor love. Nor trust. She wasn’t ready. He’d have to
understand.

“
I didn’t realize you have a boat,” she
said, pushing out the words as if from under water.

“
It’s only a twenty-six footer.” Brad
sounded apologetic, as if he knew a cruiser, even of modest size,
tarnished his poor little farm boy image. “I like to explore some
of the smaller rivers and canals.”

“
Don’t tell Jamie. He’ll haunt you.”
She’d been wrong. The emotions she was feeling were one-sided. Brad
wasn’t thinking home and family. She was just another conquest.
Another entry in the let’s-keep-Brad-from-being-bored
sweepstakes.

“
I don’t mind,” he murmured from
directly behind her, his lips dipping to whisper in her ear.
“Haunting’s nice if the right person is doing it.”

Claire did a duck and weave any quarterback
would have been proud of, ending in a fast walk across the massive
bedroom to a much smaller room beyond. Not that her retreat was
going to do her much good. Unless she opted for a ten-mile walk
back to her grandmother’s, Brad had her right where he wanted her.
A few more minutes of cat and mouse weren’t going to matter at
all.

Claire put on a show of examining the
adjacent bedroom, which had its own bathroom and was small only in
comparison to the suite next to it. Brad had it fitted out as an
office/computer room. At the end of the hall outside the second
bedroom, a set of backstairs led down to the kitchen. Claire almost
took them. Escape. Anything to keep from going back to Brad’s
bedroom. To the room with the massive bed.

Brad hadn’t followed her. He was lounging in
the doorway—elaborately casual, faintly amused—one broad shoulder
propping up the door jamb. Watching. Waiting.

If she asked him to take her home, what would
he do? Laugh at her? Figure she was playing games? Take what he
wanted?

Was she nothing more than a curiosity? A
passing fancy? The latest in his need to check out the new girl in
town?

Well, she could be cool too. Brad Blue
was just a has-been Alphabet Man, while she’d faced the best of the
FBI, ATF, DEA, FAA, DOD, FDIC, and a few whose acronyms she never
knew. Avoiding Brad’s sardonic gaze, and without so much as a
glance at the imposing bed that seemed to be screaming its
presence, Claire crossed the expanse of carpet to peer into the
master bathroom.
Oh, my God!
Stunned, she paused just inside the doorway. Black ceramic
fixtures contrasted sharply with white walls and matching tile
floor. The gleaming black whirlpool tub with gold waterfall faucet
looked large enough for a whole family. A separate shower had clear
glass sides, a sunken black tile floor, no door. It was so
revealing that Claire couldn’t imagine any female over eighteen
being willing to bare all in such a fashion. Maybe with enough
steam?

Out of her vision of swirling mist and
steam rose a very different fantasy. Brad. All rippling bronze
muscles, tossing his long pale hair back out of his face, his more
intimate parts on a par with Michelangelo’s statue of David. Heat
enveloped her. As if she were right inside, sharing the
shower.
Fool! Man-starved fool.