Shadowed Paradise (4 page)

“
Well, I never claimed to be a
teenager,” Claire snapped. She was all too aware of her bedraggled
condition. Just her luck to meet a man with a face out of Norse
legend grafted onto the body of Mr. Clean when she looked like the
Wicked Witch of the West after the house fell on her. Nor could her
thong sandals pass for ruby slippers. Too bad. She could use a bit
of magic about now.

A tinkling chirp pierced the awkward pause in
the conversation. Brad whipped a cell phone off his belt. “Brad
Blue. Yeah, she’s here with me . . . That’s great. I’ll tell her.
Thanks, Dave. Bye.”

Brad turned to Claire. “Dave says your car
seems to be okay. He’s bringing it to your house. He thinks you
ought to have the alignment checked sometime this next week.
Otherwise you shouldn’t have any trouble driving it.”

Claire didn’t try to disguise her whoosh of
relief. Her insurance only covered liability. A new car was
definitely not in the Langdon budget. Just as she couldn’t afford
to set up a new cell phone.

“
Sea Grape’s on the right, where the
pines are,” Claire pointed out. Ahead, a tall stand of slash pines
marked the area where a narrow peninsula of higher ground rose
above the water-logged mangrove swamps, forming just enough space
for a single home in an absolutely private setting. Virginia
Bentley and her husband had built their dream house there forty
years ago when they were a mile from their nearest neighbor and
twelve miles from a grocery store. This southern portion of Golden
Beach, which had once been a wilderness of palmetto, palms and
pine, was now serviced by three massive shopping centers, five
grocery stores, a mammoth Target, a Super Wal-Mart, and mile after
close-packed mile of store-front businesses along U.S. 41, the
legendary Tamiami Trail.

Brad drove carefully on the Bentley’s
quarter-mile drive of sand and crushed shell. There was no telling
just how far the bay itself had risen in what forecasters were now
calling “a hundred-year rain.” He needn’t have worried. The ground
around the Bentley house rose well above the bay that surrounded it
on three sides. The house itself was doubly high and dry, rising on
twelve-foot pilings solidly imbedded in concrete.

Brad’s eyes widened as he parked and looked
up at the house, which was lit by floodlights at each corner, with
two more illuminating the open garage area beneath the house. He’d
had no idea. The house was older than he was, yet not even when the
population of Golden Beach was only four thousand had he ventured
into this part of town. Virginia Bentley was a celebrity when she
moved to Golden Beach, and the town protected its own. Brad grinned
into the darkness. Even to wiseass teenagers, Virginia Bentley’s
aerie had been off limits.

He stopped gaping and turned to Claire. “I’d
like to stay until your car arrives. I’ll check it out for
you.”

And she’d thought knights-errant had
been extinct for eight hundred years. Certainly the past two years
of her life had been distinguished by their absence. Her debt to
this stranger was growing by the minute. What was that old line
from
Streetcar
? Something
about
depending on the kindness of strangers. Was that
what she’d come to? The broken-down, over-the-hill female
dependent? Claire felt a little sick. But she’d never let him see
it. Pride, that cold bedfellow, was all she had left. And, besides,
she’d probably never see him again.

It was not the comforting thought it should
have been.

“
Thanks, that’s great,” Claire mumbled,
swallowing the choking sensation in her throat.

Never having ridden in a pickup before,
she descended from the cab with caution. When she turned to help
Jamie, Claire discovered he was being swung down on driver’s side
by a pair of strong arms encased in classic blue chambray.
Blast!
He’d gone to a stranger
instead of to her. To a man. Of course, to a man. Claire turned
blindly toward the house, leaving the males to follow.

Brad found himself with an armful of clinging
child, thin arms wrapped firmly around his neck. Not the worst vote
of confidence he’d ever had. As Claire plunged beneath the sturdy
stilts that supported the Bentley house and started up an L-shaped
ramp, Brad paused, once again staring up at the towering structure
above him. A cracker house. Boca Grande style. Key West. Whatever
you called it, this was the natural way to beat the Florida
climate. Now the latest environmentally correct darling of
avant-garde architects, this house had been built forty years ago
when new construction in Golden Beach consisted of two-bedroom
stucco ranch homes with carports.

“
What’d you stop for?” Jamie
demanded.

“
Sorry. Just admiring your
grandmother’s house.”

“
Great-gramma.”

“
Right.” Still carrying Jamie, Brad
climbed the wooden ramp that led to the granddaddy of all
greatrooms. The entire bay side of the house was one long room, a
three-sided panorama of glass. He drank it in, mentally rearranging
the floor plan of one of his model homes.
Jesus!
He was thirty-eight years old and staring
like a starry-eyed kid.

“
There’s beer in the fridge,” Claire
said. “Help yourself while I get Jamie to bed.”

Brad slid Jamie down onto the gleaming white
tile floor and held out his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you,
Jamie. You were very brave tonight. In a tight situation it’s
important for people to do exactly what they’re told. And you did.
I hope I get to see you again.”

The look he got as Jamie Langdon solemnly
shook his hand made Brad’s stomach churn. He’d thought there was
nothing left in this world that could faze him, but abject,
brimming gratitude in the eyes of a small boy was something he had
never encountered before.

“
G’night.” Jamie’s lips quivered but
the words were clear. “And thanks.”

Brad swallowed hard. No little boy should
have to be so solemn, so determined to be the man of the family.
“Okay, off to bed with you now. And don’t worry, I’ll check out the
car when it comes back.”

Brad stood for some time, looking down
the hallway toward the door that had closed behind Claire Langdon
and her son. Something in his head went
click
. Like a key turning on a new life, shutting
out the past. All he had to do was . . .

Remember he was a developer. Building houses
like Virginia Bentley’s on a jungle river out back of beyond.

And forget what he’d been before that. A man
of violence who shouldn’t be allowed in the same room with people
like Claire and Jamie Langdon.

Brad crossed the width of the greatroom, slid
open the glass door and stepped out onto the broad covered deck
that ran around all four sides of the house. Far to the west
lightning still flickered over the Gulf, but here—incredibly, after
three days of rain—the moon had come out. Stars shone with an extra
brilliance as if newly washed. Below him lay a fairytale landscape.
The only break in a sea of mangroves as thick as the briars around
Sleeping Beauty’s cottage was a long wooden walkway that led past a
gazebo down to a dock at the edge of the bay. Moonlight cut a swath
across the narrow bay that was part of the Intracoastal Waterway.
The long dark shadow beyond was a narrow strip of barrier island.
Beyond that, the beach Claire had been able to walk to when she was
child. The long beautiful stretch of beach forever cut off from the
mainland in order to accommodate a few fat cat yacht owners.

And what right did he have to be so cynical?
His father had jumped from a Russian trawler, reaching shore more
dead than alive, to escape communism back in the bad old days of
the Cold War, and here he was having snide thoughts about American
capitalism.

“
Oh, there you are. Thought you might
need this.” Claire tossed him a large bath towel, then retreated as
quickly as she had come.

Brad’s eyes lingered on her back as she
crossed the greatroom and once again disappeared down the hallway.
Nice ass, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand why he
found her appealing. He preferred his women stunningly beautiful,
sleek, stacked, and sassy. Tigers in bed.

Hell . . . maybe he was suffering from the
male equivalent of the ticking biological clock. A settled home, a
family, had an undeniable appeal. Or maybe it was the old rush of
adrenalin, the whiff of danger, the ancient attraction of rescuing
a maiden in distress. Had the world really changed so little? You
could take the knight out of his armor, but you couldn’t take the
instincts out of a man’s soul.

Shit! Diane would kill him.
Think architecture, not women!

Brad sat on the porch’s outer railing,
clutched a support post with one hand, and leaned out, craning his
neck upward. There it was. The obligatory cupola. A large one. Very
likely the vantage point from which Virginia Bentley had written
most of the novels that had graced the Best Seller list of
The New York Times
.

Brad slid off the railing, turning for one
last look at the panorama of bay, beach, and gulf that stretched
all the way to the storm on the horizon. Beyond the waterway and
the barrier island’s narrow strip of sand and sea grass, there was
nothing but water all the way to Mexico. He had a great fondness
for his own portion of Golden Beach, the jungle on the opposite
side of town that ran along the Calusa River, but he had to admit
Virginia Bentley and her husband had known how to pick a spot.
Privacy was no longer easy to come by in Golden Beach. The Bentleys
had found a location that would remain theirs and theirs alone, no
matter how many people overran the land behind them.

Dampness rose in waves from the rain-soaked
land around him, from the broad leaves of dripping sea grape, from
hardy hibiscus, from mangroves reaching up out of their beds of
salt water. From the bay and the seemingly infinite Gulf of Mexico.
The night insects had come out of hiding and begun their insistent
song. The world was fresh. Renewed. Hopeful.

No wonder people wanted to live in Golden
Beach. Who could blame them?

The kitchen, Brad discovered, was in the
center of the house, divided from the living area by a waist-high
counter. Somehow dishes must not seem so bad if you could stand at
the sink and see, theoretically, all the way to Mexico.

He found the beer, popped the cap, and downed
a long satisfying swallow. Life was good. And looking better by the
minute.

“
Good morning, Jody!” Claire could only
hope the sixteen-year-old wouldn’t find anything odd about the
fatuous grin she couldn’t quite hide.

Jody Stevens was a summer replacement for T
& T’s regular receptionist who had three young children and no
one else to tend them over school vacation. Though still suffering
slightly from baby fat, Jody was graced by a round face framed by
dark brown waves of shoulder-length hair and anchored by a pair of
glowing eyes as brown as hazel nuts. She was so cheerfully
efficient she made everyone else in the office feel like
Methuselah. She could answer six incoming lines with thirty
extensions, send and receive faxes, arrange showings for T &
T’s many listings and still maintain her bubbling enthusiasm and
quick smile.

Fortunately, this morning Jody was so busy
she barely glanced up from her desk. “Am I ever glad you’re here!”
she cried. “The rental list must have hit the north in yesterday’s
mail. The phone hasn’t stopped, and there were so many messages on
the machine I couldn’t do them ‘til you got here.”

“
I’ll take the phones while you check
the messages,” Claire volunteered. Jody flashed a grateful grin,
grabbed a pad and pencil and headed for the answering machine in
the backroom.

Spared!
Claire
was ready to share her harrowing adventure on the bridge last
night, but her reaction to Brad Blue was way too sensitive.
Private.

Nine a.m., Claire, old girl. Time to get your
head out of the clouds.

And yet . . . while Claire waited for her
computer to run its system checks, her fatuous grin came back. She
stared at the screen and saw only a mass of long blond hair
shimmering around the tanned face of the man who had put down his
bottle of beer and unfolded himself from the kitchen chair when she
returned from putting Jamie to bed. She’d made her entrance
well-armed, having changed her clothes, combed her hair, and
executed a mad scramble to find the rosy gold of her favorite
lipstick.

He stood as she entered the kitchen, his eyes
glowing with the shared amusement of
what-a-hell-of-a-night-we’ve-had. And something more.

Right there, under the unromantic glare of
the kitchen light, Claire knew she was in trouble. She hadn’t even
looked at a man in two years, yet if this one wanted to throw her
over his shoulder and carry her into the bedroom in the same house
with her son and grandmother, she probably couldn’t have managed a
squeak of protest.

Well, maybe not. But the urges were
powerful.

His cheekbones were high, his nose a finely
structured flare of flesh and bone set between blue eyes the color
of a brilliant summer sky and above full lips that could only be
described as sensual. His jaw was firm, that of a man accustomed to
having his own way. Framing the whole was the incredible mass of
long thick hair so blond, even wet, that Claire realized it would
probably dry to near white.

What did
he
see? Claire wondered. The red glints in her
shoulder length brown hair? Probably not. The red was only visible
when thoroughly dry and under strong sunlight. And her face was
nothing to get excited about. A nice even arrangement of features,
large blue-green eyes her only claim to beauty. She was the girl
men brought home to their mothers. Never the one they lusted
after.