Shadowed Paradise (35 page)

Four generations of Hilliards, three
generations of Whitlaws and an assortment of Tyrees attended the
wedding of Claire Hilliard Langdon to Bradley Whitlaw Blue. In
time-honored tradition, the bride’s mother and grandmother smiled
broadly while tears ran unabashedly down their cheeks.

In the second pew on the other side of the
aisle, Wade Whitlaw sat stiffly erect, wearing a dark suit, string
tie and snakeskin boots. He looked more like a latter-day Wyatt
Earp than grandfather of the groom. Sitting beside him were his son
and two grandchildren, Melanie and Slade. Tucked up between Garret
and his children was Phil Tierney. The wedding guests buzzed with
delight. Brad’s ex, right up front. Oh, my!

The day had started well enough. Over the
shocked protests of her mother and grandmother, Claire went to work
as usual. No developer could afford to miss a sunny Saturday and,
Claire admitted, if only to herself, it was easier to work than sit
around having second thoughts about tying herself to the
deceptively beautiful dangerous wilderness called Florida. And to a
man who made the wilderness seem tame.

Fate was still smiling early that afternoon
when Claire wrote a contract for Amber Run’s medium-sized model, to
be built on one of the most picturesque riverfront lots. From her
desk by the model’s front windows, she caught occasional glimpses
of Brad’s bright blue pickup zipping from the models to the
community dock area—which was finally under construction—to a new
site at the far end of Amber Run where a reclusive writer had
bought two lots and begun construction of a personal hideaway.
Brad, with token adherence to the tradition of not seeing the bride
on the wedding day until they met at the church, kept moving,
avoiding his customary plunges up the stairs to Amber Run’s shining
new headquarters. Each time his pickup came into view, Claire
watched wistfully as Brad waved a bronzed arm out the cab window or
flashed her a jaunty thumbs-up.

Claire closed the model only an hour earlier
than usual and drove straight to the bride’s room at the church
where Ginny Bentley, Elizabeth Hilliard, and a starry-eyed Jody
Stevens were waiting. After Jody worked diligently over Claire’s
hair and make-up, the ladies helped Claire into her wedding dress,
a designer gift from her mother and grandmother. A flowing chiffon
gown in a misty flower print that might have stepped out of an
Impressionist garden. The soft, asymmetrical layers of the skirt
pooled on the floor around her as her helpers fussed. At last,
faces beaming with satisfaction, the women added a picture hat
whose silk flowers and trailing chiffon scarf matched the misty
print in her dress.

When she looked into the full-length mirror,
Claire was astonished by the dewy-eyed woman who showed no sign of
past trauma, current anxieties, or qualms about the future. She had
never looked better in her life, not even on that first wedding day
ten years in the past. Her mind and heart steadied to fit the
elegant image. Excitement surged, pushing out the clutch of fear
that had hovered, refusing to go away. She was marrying her knight
in blue denim, her savior and protector who rode to the rescue on a
blue metal charger with more horsepower than his medieval
predecessors could ever imagine. He had rescued her with casual
confidence, totally devoid of the proper reverence and respect due
a damsel in distress. And now he would protect her with the same
steel-eyed determination. And she would let him do it. And like
it.

Love it.

She was also a woman of the
twenty-first century. Eager . . . reaching out . . . no,
seizing
the opportunity for a new
life. For herself. For Jamie.

It was a beautiful day. A perfect day.

Claire smiled. The woman in the mirror smiled
back.

It was time. Jody made one last inspection of
Claire’s ensemble, then handed her the bride’s bouquet of pink and
lavender rosebuds in an old-fashioned silver lace holder. As the
four women walked the few steps along the outdoor covered walkway
that led to the small chapel, Claire’s brain settled into robot
mode, her body moving through a pre-programmed sequence of events,
while rational thought ceased to exist.

She barely noticed Jody slip away. Or saw the
ushers extending their arms to her mother and grandmother, leading
them to their places at the front of the tiny chapel. If her father
hadn’t tucked her arm through his, she might have stayed right
where she was, feet rooted to the vestibule floor.

It was a small chapel, a short aisle. As
Jordan Lovell—who’d been drafted as the person most likely to make
sure that myriad details of the wedding and reception went
smoothly—chivied everyone into position, Claire focused her gaze on
Brad and stayed there. Charcoal suit, a tie so conservative he must
have borrowed it. Blond mane ruthlessly slicked back and fastened
with a black silk tie reminiscent of the eighteenth century.
Bradley Whitlaw Blue. Quite the most stunning sight Claire had ever
seen.

She was marrying
him
. Blatant desire penetrated her fogged
brain.

Brad’s acting skills had gotten him
through many a tight situation, and this was one of the worst. As
he looked down the aisle, love and admiration lit his face while
inwardly he was chanting, S
hit, shit,
shit!
Claire was going to kill him.

And he couldn’t blame her.

He was thirty-eight years old. He ought to be
able to handle an uncle young enough to be an older brother and an
ex-wife determined to demonstrate the magnanimity of her
benevolence. Brad kept smiling while attempting to sneak a look at
his bride, but all he could see beneath the damn canopy of chiffon
and flowers was a glimpse of her small straight nose. He fervently
hoped the organ was drowning out the grinding of his teeth.

There was Jordan Lovell, herding Jamie into
place, studying the bride, tilting Claire’s floppy hat a half inch
or so. Brad groaned. Diane and Jordan were thick as thieves. What
the hell? As if his ex-wife sitting right up front with the
Whitlaws wasn’t bad enough, maybe Diane would show up too.

To the soft strains of music
from
West Side Story
, assuring
them there was a place for them, somewhere a place for them, Jamie
started down the aisle, head up, eyes shining, his hands tightly
clutching the satin cushion, holding the rings.

The words of the ceremony were traditional.
But with each syllable, each promise once made to another, the
ghosts coalesced into firmer, more menacing shape. The bride and
groom had gone this way before, made vows broken by
disillusionment, death, and divorce.

Not this time, Claire promised herself. Not
this time. No matter what led her to this moment, she was going to
be the wife she was promising to be. She would adapt to being a
Floridian . . . to having a husband women lusted after . . .

Which was the moment the world spun as Brad
kissed her, then crashed as she turned, smiling and laughing, to
face the congregation—and saw Phil Tierney. They’d had to invite
her, of course, but sitting in the second row with the
Whitlaws?

It shouldn’t matter, of course. But . . .

As Purcell’s “Trumpet Voluntary” reverberated
through the small chapel, Claire pasted a smile back on her face
and ran the gauntlet of well wishers as she and Brad worked their
way down the aisle and out to the Thunderbird parked outside. The
T-bird, Brad had confided, was his father’s only toy, the shining
symbol of achievement for the Russian college student turned
cowhunter, farmer, and cabinet maker. It was only fitting the
low-slung red car be used to transport the bride and groom back to
Palm Court.

As Brad zipped through traffic with his
customary disregard for speed laws or the idiosyncracies of Golden
Beach’s elderly drivers, Claire held her broad-brimmed hat in place
with one hand and clutched her bouquet with the other. Life was
compromise, she kept repeating to herself. Even wedding days were
not guaranteed perfect. So she would be the picture of joyous bliss
for Brad’s construction crew. For the owner, agents and staff of T
& T, including Ken Millard, who had been sitting beside Maggie
McKinnon—and was still first on Claire’s personal list of suspects.
She would smile and smile and play gracious lady of the manor for
an assortment of Hilliards, Whitlaws and Tyrees; not to mention
Sheriff Bill Jeffries, three county commissioners, two state
representatives, one member of the House of Representatives, and
Florida’s senior U. S. Senator.

They were so incredibly naive. So trusting.
He could walk right up to any of them. Dance. Laugh. Sip champagne
while flirting over the rim of his glass.

Cops outside, cops—top cops—inside. And not
one of them knew. Shit, they didn’t have a clue.

Jody now . . . she was a rare one. Too bad
she was so young. He liked a little more maturity. Still . . . the
little cunt looked a lot older today. And prettier. Much
prettier.

He leaned his back against one of the
courtyard pillars and spent a satisfying five minutes mentally
undressing Jody Stevens. Slowly. Indulgently. Completely.

Was Jody a virgin? Maybe he’d find out.

After the other two.

Oh ye-ah . . . after the others, maybe he’d
find out.

Brad tossed his last item of clothing, a
black sock, onto the floor. Lips curling in an anticipatory grin,
he stripped the covers off the bed, switched off the lamp, and
stretched full length on the pristine lace-trimmed white sheets
he’d bought especially for the occasion.

Jesus!
What was
taking her so long? He’d been hot for Claire’s return ever since
she disappeared into the bathroom carrying nothing more than a wisp
of pale pink froth in her hand.

Weird
. She’d
been sharing his bed nearly every night for weeks. He should have
built up some kind of immunity. Blasé Brad, international
sophisticate—whatever happened to him? The new Brad was hard as a
rock, panting to see his wife—his
wife
—in nothing but transparent pink
froth.
Pink, for God’s sake!

He didn’t give a damn what excuse had brought
her to the altar. She wanted him. He wanted her. And now that he
had her where he wanted her, everything was going to fall into
place. There was, after all, something to be said for barefoot and
pregnant . . .

Brad tucked one hand beneath his head, his
eyes never leaving the doorway to the bathroom. His penis stood at
attention, blatantly ready for the wedding night Too much exposure
for his little lady from New England? Maybe a bit more subtlety . .
.

A scream from the bathroom. Brad catapulted
off the bed, running, only to collide with Claire as she came
bursting through the door. Ignoring the longed-for transparent pink
silk and Claire’s babbling, which made no sense, he thrust her
aside and charged into the bathroom.

Oh, shit!
It
needed only this.

Brad unclenched his jaw, speaking very
carefully, one syllable at a time. “It’s only Maisie,” he said.

“
Maisie!” Claire choked from the safety
of the center of the kingsize bed. “You
named
it?”

“
Well, actually,” Brad admitted, “it
could be Maisie or it could be one of her relatives. We’re not
really that well acquainted. It’s nothing to get excited about,” he
continued in tones so patronizing Claire’s teeth stood on edge.
“They don’t bite. Not people anyway. They eat bugs—cockroaches,
palmetto bugs, things like that.”

Claire rejected the explanation with
loathing. “It was just like a horror film. I was sitting there
taking off my makeup when I looked in the mirror and saw this
giant
thing
on the wall behind
me. It’s black, it has eight legs. It’s the size of a dinner
plate!”

“
Saucer maybe,” Brad
conceded.

“
It is the biggest spider I have ever
seen in my life,” Claire declared flatly. “I want it gone. Now.
Where are you going?” she shrieked as Brad came out of the bathroom
and headed toward the back stairs that led down to the
kitchen.

He paused, naked and limp, in the doorway.
“It’s a hunter spider,” he explained patiently, “out on its nightly
roach patrol. Hunters don’t make webs because they’re so damn fast
on their feet—uh, legs. I pride myself on my reflexes, but if I
tried to swat the damned thing with anything I have on hand, it
would simply scoot away, dive back where it came from, and then
you’d really be mad.” With a barely perceptible, but nonetheless
annoying, shrug of his shoulders, Brad disappeared out the bedroom
door.

Claire never moved from her crouch in the
center of the bed. She kept her eyes trained on the bathroom. If
that thing came creeping—or possibly charging—into the bedroom, she
was going to be prepared to run.

A few minutes later, after Brad successfully
demonstrated his spider removal technique using a combination of
bug spray and a fly swatter, he presented the crumpled remains
displayed on a bed of blue Kleenex. Claire cringed and burst into
tears. “Take it away,” she sobbed. “I don’t think Florida likes me,
I really don’t. I’m just not brave enough for this place.” She
choked, hiccuped, clutched at the brand new crisp white sheets.
“For heaven’s sake, bring me a Kleenex, a whole box. Nothing’s
going to get me off this bed.”

“
Good,” Brad leered over his shoulder
as he headed back to the bathroom after depositing Maisie’s remains
in the wastebasket.

Claire gulped, blew her nose, and eyed her
husband rather sheepishly after he handed her the box of
tissues.