Bird of Paradise (3 page)

She snarled something anatomically
impossible before turning her back on him. Unseen by her, Adam let
out a low sigh of relief as she moved to hand in her boarding pass.
It was too bad that she’d found him out before he’d even set foot
on the blasted island, but perhaps it was better this way. Now he
knew where he stood (on the edge of a very shaky bridge), and could
go from there. Handling Sally would require kid gloves, but that
was no problem. He’d just explain it all to her once she had calmed
down. No, it wouldn’t be a hard job at all, he reflected a short
time later as he tucked Jesus’s carrier under the airplane seat
with an admonition for the cat to keep his claws to himself. All he
needed to do was keep a low profile and all would be well.

Five hours later, as the chartered plane
took off from Miami headed for Mystique Island, Adam opened up the
dossier on the man whose place he was taking an realized he was in
deep trouble. Incredibly deep trouble.

“Hi, I’m Teri,” a pert redhead sitting next
to him had introduced herself a few minutes before. “You’re going
to be on the show too, huh? What’s your name?”

“Uh . . “ Adam regretted the three
screwdrivers he’d had on the flight from California that had led to
his sleeping through most of the flight. He blinked at the
bright-eyed redhead. “Uh . . . I have to . . . um . . . I’ll be
right back.”

He grabbed the dossier as he ran for the
nearest bathroom, locking himself in to read up quickly on who he
was supposed to be. He stared in horror at the words until they
swam before his eyes.

If the passengers nearest
the bathroom were surprised by the sudden, profound burst of
cursing emanating from the bathroom, they did not express it. The
did, however, look with some worry upon Adam as he emerged. He
bared his teeth in what he hoped was a smile and muttered something
about needing to get more roughage in his diet as he stalked back
to his seat. He was going to kill Gar; that’s all there was to it.
He’d
have
to kill
him, there was just no other choice.

“Are you all right?” the redheaded woman
asked with concern as he slumped into his seat muttering under his
breath the variety of unpleasant things he wanted to do to his
employer.

“Fine,” he choked, then took a deep breath
and held out his hand. “Monday. My name is Monday. Monday
Marsh.”

“Monday?” she asked as she gave his hand one
of those little feminine squeezes that women thought passed as a
handshake. Her blue eyes suddenly grew round with surprise. “Your
name is Monday?”

Adam ground his teeth and nodded.

“Monday Marsh?”

The muscles in his jaw
locked. He nodded again. “
The
Monday Marsh?” The woman’s voice was loud,
strident, filling the whole dam airplane. His stomach tightened and
wadded up into a tiny lead ball. People around him started to
murmur his supposed name, turning in their seats to look back at
him. He tried to make himself relax. If the muscles in his jaw
tightened any more, his teeth would crack. “The Monday Marsh who’s
on the radio? You’re
that
Monday Marsh?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice as cutting as
razor-edged gravel on bare fee. “I’m that Monday Marsh.”

“Wow!” the woman said under her breath, her
eyes alight with wonder. “I can’t believe you’re sitting next to
me. I listen to you all the time! I love your show! It’s the best
sex advice I’ve ever heard! That time you told the couple in L.A.
to bring in her sister to explore the dynamics of a ménage à
trois—that was such good advice! I loved your descriptions of the
stuff they should do! I tried it with my boyfriend and his
roommate, and it was the best sex I’ve ever had. You’re going to
Mystique for the show! Are you the sex consultant or something? Are
you giving classes? Do you take private students?”

Adam ignored the hand caressing his thigh.
“Yes, I’m going to Mystique, no, I’m not the consultant, and no,
I’m not offering classes. I’m a”—he ground down another layer of
enamel as he spat out the word—”contestant.”

“He’s a contestant!” the woman sitting in
front of him told her seat partner. Both women eyed him avidly.
Adam had sudden and complete empathy with every celebrity who had
ever felt hounded by the public. “Would you say it for us? You
know, the thing you always say on your show!? The woman asked.

“Yes, say it,” Teri begged,
her hand squeezing and caressing his leg through the thin linen of
his pants. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable at the looks he
was getting, worried that Teri’s hand would go roving. He’d never
been the focus of so many women’s attention—hell, he’d never been
the focus of
any
woman’s attention aside from Brittany. She was his first and
only girlfriend. He’d never even thought about another woman until
she’d left him a few months ago.

“Monday Marsh? The nipple guy! Hey, many,
say that thing you say,” a man two rows ahead stood up and called
back to Adam.

“Say it, say it, say it!” The chant started
up out of nowhere but quickly gained volume as word of who he was
pretending to be passed among the passengers. Teri licked her lips
as her hand slid toward his groin, her eyes sending him a blatant
message of invitation.

“Say it, say it!”

Adam squirmed in his seat, unwilling to take
the pretense any farther, unsure of how to stifle the attention he
was receiving. He opened his mouth to yell out the truth, to end
the farce before it went any farther, but a sharp pinprick of cat
claws on his ankle reminded him why he was there.

“Say it! Say it! Say it!”

He disengaged Jesus’s claws from his sock,
standing with reluctance to face the planeload of chanting people.
From where Sally sat in the far rear he could see her smiling a
mocking smile at him.

“Say it!”

He straightened his shoulders.

“Say it!”

He lifted his chin.

“Say it!”

He sighed, and looked out into the faces of
strangers, men and women he’d never met before, men and women who
were gathering from around the country to participate in a
six-week-long television show with the goal of finding someone
special. Where had his life gone wrong? How had it all come down to
this moment? He held up his hands for quiet. Instantly the voices
were hushed, the silence expectant, a hundred or so people leaning
forward to catch the words as they left his lips. Adam took a deep
breath, swearing to himself that if he lived through this, he
really would see to it that his name was put down for sainthood.
“My friends, I am a contestant like the rest of you. I am here
purely as an amateur, not as an expert in the field of sexuality. I
ask that you not treat me any differently than anyone else on the
show. I appreciate the request, but I’m sure no one here really
wants to hear that silly catchphrase. Thank you.”

“Say it!”
they roared back at him.

He sighed again, then gave in to the
inevitable as gracefully as possible. “And then my nipples exploded
in delight.”

The entire body of passengers, himself and
Sally excepted, burst into ear-shattering cheers. Adam forced a
smile onto his lips, gave a light bow to acknowledge the applause,
and took his seat.

He really was going to have to kill
Edgar.

Chapter Two

“Depraved, all of them. Nothing but a bunch
of depraved steroid-riddled sex fiends,” Hero muttered to herself
as she stood behind a large potted palm as the Mystique Island
airport watching the men ogle the women. She was taking furtive
photographs, unwilling to let anyone see her snapping their photos
lest it lead to explanations she didn’t want to make. She took a
picture of a particularly lustful leer on a man’s face, and
corrected her statement. The men were ogling all the women but her,
that is. Did she care? She did not! She had better things to do
than allow a bunch of beefy, perfectly coiffed male American sex
fiends to ogle her. She had some standards, after all. No matter
what anyone else might think, she was not desperate; lots of women
lived perfectly happy, successful lives without a man. She would
simply be one of them. There was certainly nothing here to tempt
her, no cause to be worried about Gemma’s dire prediction.

“Jesus, no!”

The hoarse whisper caught her attention as
much as the person tugging on the back fringe of her
blue-and-purple batik cotton wrap. She hastily punched random
buttons to turn the digital camera off and stashed it in her purse
before she spun around in time to see the fringe disappearing into
the hole on the side of a black plastic box with a handle on the
top. A man squatted next to the box, speaking to it quietly but
firmly. “Let go of it, cat.”

Hero’s eyebrows rose. There was a cat in the
box? Someone was bringing a cat to the island? She thought the
television show had taken over the entire resort for the duration
of the show—why on earth would a man bring his cat with him to a
film dating show?

“How many times do I have to tell you not to
grab at ladies’ dresses?”

Her eyebrows arched higher as she looked
down at the doubled-up figure of the man as he tugged her fringe
out of the box. “Let go of it, damn you! I’ll buy you your own
fringe later. Jesus, drop it!”

A frown forced her eyebrows together.
Honestly, American men! If they weren’t sex fiend oglers, they
swore at innocent cats. She wanted nothing to do with them,
absolutely nothing. The next few weeks were going to be sheer and
utter hell.

Still she didn’t like to see a cat in
trouble.

“Perhaps I can help.” She said as she knelt
down carefully next to him, reaching for the material he was
tugging out of the box. “I have a way with animals, and I’m very
fond of cats.”

The man looked up, blinking at her as she
gasped in response, all the air in her lungs having suddenly
disappeared. Dear Lord, he was gorgeous. Oh, not in the
conventional manner, but in a much more devastating way, a way that
suddenly made her feel extremely conscious of the fact that she had
given up far too early on the latest diet guaranteed to whisk away
unwanted pounds. He was perfection, he was manliness personified,
he was everything she’d ever loved in a man—short black hair, two
ebony swoops of eyebrows, lovely little laugh crinkles around dark
blue eyes, a long nose that had a kink in the middle, and an
indentation on either cheek that hinted at dimples. She swallowed
hard, forcing herself to look away from him, suddenly aware that
she was shaking.

Gemma was right! She had snapped!

“I’m sorry, Miss . . . er . . .”

“Hero,” she answered, trying to get a grip
on herself. It was worse than she’d imagined, this snapping. “Hero
North.”

“I’m sorry, Miss North, but when my cat gets
bored, he has a habit of grabbing at passing items. He doesn’t
really mean any harm. I’ll have your wrap free in just a
minute.”

Hero nodded, not trusting herself to look at
him. She’d never had this sort of reaction to anyone before; why on
earth did she have to have it now! And with an American man, of all
things! One who, a few minutes before, was probably drooling over
all of the tanned, fit women around him. She had to get hold of
herself before the horrible snapping did any more damage. Taking a
deep breath to calm her wildly beating heart, she tugged gently on
the fringe until a gray paw came into view in one of the carrier
holes.

“Excellent. If you hold him like that, I’ll
unsnag his claws from your dress.”

Even his voice was sexy! It was low and
sensual and rumbled around, striking a chord deep within her. She
watched his long fingers carefully unhook the tangled fringe from
the cat’s claws. Maybe she hadn’t really snapped after all. Maybe
she was just so lonely that any man was starting to look good.
Maybe there was nothing special about this one, other than his
drop-dead-sexy voice and really nice fingers. Maybe thinking about
all those sex fiends had triggered a hormonal moment. Surely she
was better now. Surely this man was nothing special.

“There you go. I don’t think any damage is
done, but if there is let me know and I’ll pay for your dress.”

She glanced at him as he released her fringe
from the claw. Oh, Lord, she moaned to herself, it was worse than
she first thought! His eyes were deep, deep blue, and the
delightful laugh crinkles around them were evident as he smiled,
and she was right: he did have the faintest dimples on either
cheek. She just wanted to grab his head and kiss him. There was no
hope for her now. All that was likely to be in her future were a
few illicit weeks of pleasure before he moved on to another woman,
leading to her eventual downfall to alcoholism, and quite probably
insanity.

“Erm . . .” Oh, why had her
brain chosen this moment to shut down? Why couldn’t she remember
how to speak? Why did those glittering blue eyes peering into hers
make her forget those things said to people when you wanted to talk
to them . . .
words
, that was it. Where had all her words gone?

He leaned his head slightly toward her. “Is
there something the matter?”

“No. No, nothing. It’s just that I . . . erm
. . . nothing. Thank you.”

He nodded and stood up holding out his hand
to help her to her feet. She stared at it stupidly for a moment,
noticing his heart line curved up between his index and middle
finger.

“You’re a romantic,” her mouth said before
her brain could veto the inane comment.

That startled his almost-dimples back into
hiding. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry, I did an article on
palmistry last year.” She took his hand and got to her feet,
mentally cursing at herself.
Stupid,
stupid, stupid!
Here was a veritable oasis
of a perfectly nice man in a desert of sex fiends, and she had to
babble at him like an idiot. That was what snapping did to you: it
turned you into a raving lunatic.