Shadowed Paradise (34 page)

“
How could you?” she
whispered.

“
In case you haven’t noticed, I care
what happens to you,” Brad replied, meeting her hostility with
resignation. “I can’t forget what I’ve been, Claire. My brain
doesn’t turn off just because I’m no longer on active duty. It
seemed necessary to examine every possibility, including your past
coming back to haunt you.”

“
Have you any idea what the sight of
Doug Chalmers does to me?” Claire hissed. “And he was the best of
the lot. I was almost
free
,
Brad. Free at last. I was beginning to put it all behind
me.”

“
I’m truly sorry, Claire, but I don’t
regret calling them in.” Brad shifted his weight as if about to
reach out and touch her. Instead, he leaned back, planting his
hands firmly on the counter behind him. “Bad memories are better
than being dead,” he drawled. “It so happens I don’t want to lose
you.”

“
That’s just great,” Claire mocked, her
spirit beginning to revive. “We’ve got the FBI and InterBank
wiseguys on one side and a stalker and a serial killer on the
other. And you think we should get married in the midst of all
this!”

“
How can we not?”

“
And what’s that supposed to
mean?”

“
If you’re my wife, I can do a damn
sight better job of protecting you against stalkers,
killers,
and
the
FBI.”

“
What a delightful reason for getting
married.” Acidity vibrated between them.

Brad had promised himself he wouldn’t
push, wouldn’t lose his temper, but the woman was enough to drive a
saint wild. Goaded beyond endurance, he replied in kind. “Look,
Claire, people marry every day for sex, wealth, power or just for
the hell of it.” He was standing away from the counter now,
towering over her, eyes sparking fire. “So why shouldn’t we get
married for all the wrong reasons too? God knows I’ve already
argued love and family
ad nauseam
and look what it’s got me.”

Claire raised her chin, answering the fire in
his eye with sparks of her own. So why not strike a bargain?
Romance was for idiots. Pragmatism ruled the world. “You could keep
Doug and what’s-his-name off my back?”

“
Yes.”

“
While protecting me from stalkers,
stranglers, and assorted Florida beasties?”

Stoically ignoring the dripping sarcasm, Brad
gave a curt nod. “Right.”

“
How nice,” Claire breathed from
between clenched teeth. Then again, he just might be able to pull
it off. Doug Chalmers was the final crushing blow. She could no
longer fight the world alone.

Claire tilted her head to one side, made a
leisurely examination of her knight in blue jeans, from blond pony
tail to scuffed and sandy boots. “Then I’ll marry you as soon as
the law allows,” she said. Coldly. Cynically. Mrs. James Langdon of
Central Park East grandly offering employment to a mercenary.

He was ten feet tall. Facing off with Brad
Blue. And winning. Each day he didn’t hear the snap of cold steel,
feel the cuffs closing round his wrist, he was winning. And he had
plans. Big plans. Brad Blue, macho ex-jock, was about to learn a
new kind of end run. He could chase around all he wanted, looking
for men without mothers. It wouldn’t matter a damn.

Oh, yeah, it was fourth down, baby, and no
way in hell was he going to punt. He was going to sack ol’ Brad
where it really hurt. First one. Then the other. After that, he
didn’t give a shit. Maybe he’d luck out and go down in a blaze of
bullets. Yeah, that would be good. No cold steel, no iron bars, no
brightly lit courtrooms, hard-eyed jurors, nasty prosecuting
attorneys, television cameras, reporters.

Or worse yet . . . maybe there wouldn’t be a
trial. Just an endless array of white coats. Doctors . . . peering,
poking, prying. Electric shocks . . . he’d read they were doing
that again these days. What about padded cells . . . did they still
have those? Rubber hoses? Lobotomies?

Or was it all cutesy arts and crafts? Soft
couches, sweet music . . . women. Sure, even at the funny farm
there’d be women. Not a bad thought. He liked women. Girls. Any and
all.

As long as they were dead.

Claire stood in the middle of the model’s
main living area and simply stared. The past week had been filled
with frantic activity to get the model ready to meet the
advertising promotion deadline. So much so, it had been almost
impossible for potential customers to view the house under bustling
layers of tile men, cabinet installers, carpet layers, brawny
delivery men struggling up the stairs with stove, refrigerator,
dishwasher, washer and dryer. Nor had Claire’s needs been
forgotten. There was a designer desk and chair, a sleek computer
console and a pair of white wicker armchairs intended to make
customers comfortable while being relieved of their money.

And now, at last, it was finished. The
central living area was one vast open space with greatroom, dining
room, kitchen and breakfast area defined solely by countertops and
a wall of kitchen cabinets. The model was light and spacious and
about as close to the ideal of Florida living as it was possible to
get. Beneath Claire’s feet antiqued beige ceramic tile glowed
warmly in the sunlight that filtered in through the classic sash
windows. At the far end of the kitchen the breakfast area
overlooked the screened rear deck. Beyond that was a panorama of
oaks and pines leading down to the river a hundred feet away.
Beside the greatroom’s stone fireplace, French doors were set into
a wall of glass above the pool area. Three bedrooms, carpeted in
soft shades of salmon, peach and ivory, opened off the greatroom
complex, as did the staircase of polished ash leading to the
den-sized aerie in the cupola above.

Amber Run’s first model was a triumph of
nineteenth century Florida living brought to rebirth in vivid
modern design, a deliberate effort to blend the charm and
practicality of the past with the latest in modern conveniences.
Breathtakingly beautiful. Practical. Utterly desirable.

Claire’s heart gave a sudden alarming thump
as she realized she was standing on the spot where Brad had first
proposed marriage, where they had fought and made love without ever
resolving their differences. The night Brad terrified Melanie
Whitlaw’s date . . . and spoiled his quaintly formal proposal of
marriage by talk of a shotgun wedding.

In an attempt to blot out a kaleidoscope of
angry and erotic images, Claire headed toward the French doors and
stepped out onto the rear deck. The melodious rush of cascading
water immediately began to work its soothing magic on her flushed
face and frazzled nerves. At her feet turquoise mosaic tiles lined
a bubbling hot tub that overflowed into a waterfall cascading into
a freeform pool half a level below. Artful landscaping gave the
pool the aura of a natural pond with stone outcroppings, shrubs and
flowers.

Claire’s eyes misted with pride in what had
been accomplished at Amber Run. Brad Blue might be a hot-tempered
chauvinist hunk, but he was also a man of intelligence, vision and
good taste. She couldn’t think of any job she’d rather have than
Marketing Director for Amber Run.

And tomorrow she would be undisputed
mistress of all this magnificence. No more ratty old
trailer.
Hallelujah!

On the not-so-good side, Claire was
rapidly discovering that Florida in September was simply August in
duplicate. Sheer blazing heat drove her back inside, where she
crossed the greatroom and reluctantly descended the front steps. In
spite of the unrelenting sun, she took one last lingering look up
at the model. The front and side decks were bordered by balconies
with fan-shaped railings, painted white. The metal roof, patterned
after Key West’s famed tin roofs, gleamed matte gray in the
brilliant sunlight. Claire stood tall and punched a triumphant fist
into the air.
Yes! Tomorrow it was hers.
All hers.

As she climbed the three shallow wooden steps
up to the trailer, Claire frowned at the six-inch gap that was
allowing the trailer’s cool air to escape. Surely she hadn’t been
so careless. Had she been so fascinated by the model that she
failed to hear a customer drive up? Cautiously, Claire opened the
door and stepped inside.

The trailer was empty.

Almost.

A slight movement caught her eye. She’d
thought there was nothing left in the world that could make her
scream. She was wrong. Not a loud scream—just a startled screech,
quickly choked into a gulp of shock. Claire froze, unable to think,
unable to take her eyes off her computer table. It had happened.
Events had gotten too much for her; she’d gone over the edge. She
was leaving Florida and never coming back.

The tableau by her computer was equally
frozen. A small tree frog clung desperately to the side of her
typing stand, ogling a semi-coiled black snake whose head had begun
to inch its way up the green metal. At the moment, nothing moved.
Not Claire, not the frog, not the snake. It was a standoff. She
ought to do something . . .
had
to do something, but for the life of her she couldn’t
move.

The door burst open, banging into Claire’s
statue-like back. She yelped again as a perfect stranger, shotgun
in hand, thrust her aside before pausing, baffled, by no sign of a
human menace. Mutely, Claire pointed at the computer table.

“
Well, hell,” the stranger growled,
“that’s only an indigo. It’s the frog he’s after, not you. Y’ got a
broom?”

Broom. She had a broom.
Somewhere.
Ninny!
She swept
the place every morning—how could she forget where she kept the
broom? Gingerly, Claire peered behind the wide-open door and
extracted the broom. The stranger laid the shotgun on the blueprint
table before taking his new weapon in hand. Advancing on the indigo
snake, he swept it, amidst a flurry of white paper, off the
computer table and halfway to the door. Claire was horrified to see
that, stretched out, the snake was at least five feet long. Using
the broom like a hockey stick, the stranger thrust the frustrated
and terrified snake out the door and with one final sweep,
propelled it down the steps, where the indigo promptly took off
toward the tall grass at the snake equivalent of a dead
run.

Her rescuer, an elderly gentleman, picked up
the little tree frog, which was still clinging for dear life to the
side of the typing stand, and deposited it gently beside the front
steps. When he turned to look up at her, she saw a pair of shrewd
and penetrating gray eyes, peering out of a face bronzed and
wrinkled by countless years in the sun. A mass of thick white hair
topped a body that, even shrunk with age, proclaimed him a man of
power and substance. “Shouldn’t leave your door open,” he declared.
“Shouldn’t be building here, either,” he added on a growl. “Only
fit for cows.”

Claire, the light beginning to dawn, watched
in awe as the cantankerous old gentleman tromped back up the steps.
Instead of retrieving his shotgun, he shut the door behind him and
turned to face her. “You the one the boy’s going to marry?” he
demanded.

“
Yes.” Claire could feel a blush rising
under the old man’s frank assessment.

“
You can’t panic over a little ol’
indigo if you’re going to live in these parts.” His face was grim,
but Claire thought she caught a familiar twinkle in the back of his
eyes.

“
Uh . . . yes, I know, I’m sorry,”
Claire apologized, feeling utterly foolish.

“
I guess you know who I am.”

“
Wade Whitlaw?” Claire
ventured.

The old man nodded. “You’ve got a son, I
hear.”

“
Jamie. He’s eight.”

“
Brad’ll like that. Man should have a
family. All his family.”

Claire recognized the words for what they
were—a peace offering. “We’re being married on Saturday at five at
United Church. I hope you’re planning to be there. There’s supper
afterwards at Palm Court.” As Claire smiled encouragingly at Brad’s
grandfather, she recalled how the simple ceremony she and Brad
wanted had grown, under the aegis of Ginny Bentley and Elizabeth
Hilliard, Claire’s mother, into a catered affair for sixty. Claire
guessed this was Wade Whitlaw’s unique response to his
invitation.

Her elderly rescuer studied his shotgun as if
he’d never seen it before. “Might just do that,” he mumbled into
the wooden stock. “What have you done with Brad, by the way?”

“
At the bank. The next draw is
due.”
Stupid!
Brad’s
grandfather was showing signs of mellowing, and she’d thrown Amber
Run in his face.

Wade Whitlaw’s shoulders slumped. He scowled,
reached for his shotgun. “Don’t suppose he plans to cut his hair
for the wedding?” he grumbled.

“
I’m afraid not,” Claire apologized
gently.
Whew!

The old man looked down at the gun he now
held at his side. “Illegal, you know, but I’ve carried a shotgun on
these lands since I was old enough to lift it. More’n seventy
years. No law’s going to tell me I can’t. Not that I needed it
today,” he conceded, “but if it was that killer had you cornered .
. .”

“
I’d have been extremely grateful,”
Claire assured him.

With a curt nod Wade Whitlaw turned and left.
Ignoring the rush of hot Florida air, Claire stood in the doorway
and watched him walk to his pickup, place the shotgun—illegally—on
the floorboards, and drive off at a rate of speed that made Claire
blink. Evidently, she’d been blaming the wrong set of genes for
Brad’s penchant for fast driving.