Crazy for You (4 page)

“Stop.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘stop.’”

Tasha turned and looked at Andrew, one
eyebrow arched. “Did you want to say something?”

He couldn’t believe his ears. “Yes, I would
like to say something. Is that all right?”

She tossed him an odd, little look. “Well,
yes. Of course it’s all right. What would you like to say?”

Then, as he looked into her eyes and watched
an amusing little expression creep across her face, he couldn’t
think of what he wanted to say. For the life of him, at that
moment, Andrew couldn’t think of a word. He’d listened to her
jabber on for nearly an hour. There was no way he could get a word
in edge-wise. Once she’d found out there were heading to the same
resort, it was all downhill from there.

Now, he was speechless.

Hell, she practically had their entire week
planned out.

Andrew snorted. And by the end of that week
she’d probably be making wedding plans if he didn’t stop things
right this—

“You were going to say?”

Andrew jerked his gaze back up to her face.
Somehow, he’d been staring at her legs again.

“I was saying—”

The plane jostled and Andrew was tossed to
his right, closer to Tasha. Quickly, he righted himself. “I was
saying. I’m not taking the bus. I have a rental. But you, you will
be taking the bus. You need to take the bus. You and I will not be
sharing—”

Tasha looked past him, leaning toward his
window. “Oh, look! We’re descending. There’s the island! Can’t you
just imagine? Some little guy down there is yelling, ‘da plane! da
plane!’ Can’t you just hear him? I can’t believe we’re almost
there. Isn’t this so exciting?”

Andrew inhaled deeply and rubbed a hand over
his face. Nothing but woodsy perfume filled his nostrils and masses
of long brunette hair filled his vision. He wanted her gone. Now.
Before it was too damned—

She turned and looked directly into his eyes.
“It’s going to be a great week, you know.” Then she smiled. Big.
Warm., And way, way too tempting.

Late. Before it was too damned late.

Andrew shifted in his seat and she sat back
in hers. He could feel the plane descending. Or was that something
landing with a thud in the pit of his stomach?
Something...indefinable.

“You were saying?” she began again.

Andrew shook his head. “Nothing. It was
nothing.”

Grinning, Tasha sat back in her seat and
waited for the plane to land. Andrew waited, too. For what, he
still wasn’t quite sure.

Eight

Montego Bay, Jamaica

With the keys to his rented Miata jangling
from his hand, Andrew nervously stepped across the pavement toward
the rows of rental cars. He’d somehow managed to give Tasha the
slip at the gate. It wasn’t intentional, it had just happened.
Sorta. If the truth be known, he had glanced around a couple of
times trying to locate her, but she was no where to be found. And
then there was all that commotion at customs. He thought he’d seen
the back of her head as he was leaving the baggage area, but he’d
moved quickly to the car rental desk to get on his way.

It didn’t matter. She was gone.

And all the better, he thought. He had other
things to do rather than be pestered by the likes of one Tasha
Smith the remainder of the week.

As he approached the small rental lot, he
thought that Doug Johnston might not have had too bad of an idea
yet. He searched for row D and car space number 12. A Miata was
what he was looking for. A little, red, sporty Miata. This
incentive program may indeed have merit, he thought. And the way
his sales figures have been over the past two years, he might be up
for this often. Andrew smiled.

What an unusual thought. Ordinarily he was
the one to work way past his hours, up early, to bed late. Suddenly
though, the thought of an occasional vacation was appealing. A
get-away. Surely though, at a place like this there would be
contacts--doctors, pharmacists, hospital administrators. A working
vacation. What an intriguing idea.

Why hadn’t he considered this before?

Row D came into view as he paced the row
watching the numbers pass, his gaze locked on the pavement.
Nine—Ten—Eleven—Twelve. He looked up. There was the Miata—and there
was
the nut?
Pushing a key into the door lock of
his
little, red, sporty Miata.

“Whoa.”

He stepped up. “I think you’ve got the wrong
vehicle.” She snapped her gaze to him, pulled the key from the
lock, and straightened her tall body. Andrew felt that same
unwelcome thud in the pit of his stomach again as her large brown
eyes met his.

“This your car?” Her voice was as thick as
honey.

“Well, yes.” He glanced at the ticket
attached to the keys then thrust them toward her. “D-12. A Miata.
That’s mine.”

She looked at her own keys, then flashed them
toward him. “Don’t think so, see? D-12. Says so right here. I
wasn’t expecting a Miata, but I’m not complaining.” She reached
down to the handle and lifted it. “Besides, the key fits.” She
opened the driver’s side door, tossed her carry-on and backpack
over to the passenger’s side, and got in.

The door slammed.

Wide-eyed, Andrew stepped next to the door
and pounded on the window as he heard the ignition grind to a
start. This certainly wasn’t happening. “Hey! What do you think
you’re doing? This is my car!”

She smiled. That damn, beautiful, aggravating
nut smiled at him.

“I don’t think so.” She mouthed the words
through the window, drawing them out slowly while still smiling,
then pulled the gear shift into reverse.

Andrew’s blood roiled in his veins. He
watched as she backed out, then followed along beside of her. “You
can’t do this! You’re crazy!” He pounded on the window again. She
continued in reverse until the car was fully backed out of the
space and pointed toward the exit. Not until then did she stop.
After a moment of staring at one another through the tinted glass,
finally, she let the window down half way.

“What, is your problem?” she asked, her
doe-like eyes wide with question. “Do you always act like this? Are
you stressed? Perhaps you should try ginseng. Works wonders, you
know.”

Me? My problem? Ginseng?

“You’re crazy,” he repeated. “Like I told
you, a walking disaster. Get out of there so we can settle
this.”

Acting the innocent, she asked, “Settle
what?”

“Look. Obviously there has been a
mix-up.”

“I don’t think so,” she said calmly, shaking
her head.

Disbelief flooded through him. How can
someone be so obstinate and rude—and at the same time so
intriguingly beautiful?

What was wrong with her?

Crazy. That was it. She was just downright
crazy.

Reaching for the door handle, he tipped it
forward and found it locked, which only aggravated him more. “I do
think so,” he said.

“Nope.”

Then the window went all the way up.

She revved the engine.

And the Miata began rolling, picking up
speed. But before it reached the exit, the car slowed to a stop,
the door opened. She got out and faced him, again.

Andrew saw her hands go to her mouth as she
shouted. He jogged a few steps closer and strained to hear her
above the roar of a plane engine across the way. “What a creep!” he
thought he heard her say. Then she pointed to somewhere behind
him.

He looked, scanning the rows of cars for a
moment, but when his gaze returned to her, all he saw were the
tail-lights of the Miata as they drove off the lot and were
swallowed into traffic.

“What a creep?”
How dare she call me
names
.

Andrew backtracked through the parking lot.
Pain from the stress of the afternoon raced across his forehead.
“What a creep?” He stopped and found himself in front of a
four-wheel drive vehicle.

A creep? Me? Why, she doesn’t even know me.
If I ever get my hands on that—

Jeep.

His gaze landed on the lettering on the back
of the vehicle. He blinked, then read the four letter word again. A
Jeep?

And then it clicked. Could she have
said—?

Try the Jeep?

****

Several minutes later Tasha found herself
thoroughly enjoying herself as she cruised down a narrow coastal
highway toward her destination. The ocean roared on her left; green
hills and trees bordered the road on the right. Such a pleasant
drive, she thought. And Eden II beckoned. Even the name sounded
decadent. And relaxing. Lord knew she needed it after this
afternoon. Stress? Andrew Jacob Powell III oozed it, and too much
of it had worn off on her. But, she had good old Andrew to thank
for the Miata.

Downshifting, she slowed for a hill and curve
and then looked out over the ocean and sighed.

She felt kind of bad, really, leaving Andrew
Powell III back there like that in the parking lot. Empty-handed.
That’s why, on second thought, she’d told him about the Jeep.
Surely he’s intelligent enough to figure out that the keys were
switched, she told herself. Surely, he’d simply go back to the desk
and get him another little, red Miata. Could she help it if the
lady behind the desk made a mistake and gave her the wrong keys? Of
course, that switch had just happened to have a little nudge when
the lady behind the desk had to take a phone call and turned her
back. But after all, she’d always been taught never to look a gift
horse in the mouth.

And this was some nifty little gift
horse.

But she really shouldn’t have left him
standing there. Served him right though, darting off that plane
like that without even a fare-thee-well; for giving her the slip as
soon as he’d gotten through customs. Arrogant little stuck-up
bastard. I bet his mother still does his laundry.

Reaching up to adjust the rear-view mirror,
Tasha caught sight of a vehicle closing in behind her fast.
Suddenly, it swerved to the left as it neared her bumper and pulled
up beside her.

Oh, damn. She hadn’t expected this....

Nine

On the road to Negril

Andrew spotted the Miata ahead of
him—
his
little, red, sporty Miata—and felt his insides turn
to molten lava. It couldn’t be.

If there were ever a time in his life when he
could be angry enough to strangle someone, this was it. And he had
promised himself that if he ever got one minute alone with that
lunatic, he’d strangle her. He just hadn’t realized it would be
today. Hell. Might as well get the damn thing over. He’d have
murder on his hands come sundown.

He had cursed her for twenty minutes, trying
every damn Jeep on the lot. He was even accused by one of the lot
attendants of trying to break into one. They had just about called
in the local authorities. He’d lied, something completely out of
character with him, and told the man that his key wouldn’t fit the
Jeep he was assigned, so they’d searched together until they found
the one that the key unlocked.

And now, here he was, flying down this narrow
little road at a speed much faster than he should be driving, with
the canvas doors and roof of his so-called rental car flapping in
his ears.

Pressing the accelerator to the floor, he
sped up behind the vehicle, caught the outline of dark hair, a long
ponytail and baseball cap, and quickly swerved left to pull up
beside her.

Wide-eyed, she glanced at him, then
accelerated to speed ahead down the road.

He did the same. When he caught up with her,
he swung his arm toward her, motioning for her to pull over.

She smiled, then hit the accelerator
again.

Andrew cursed and muttered. “I don’t intend
to play cat-and-mouse with you all afternoon, lady.”

As his speedometer steadily rose, he caught
up with her again. They sped neck and neck down the narrow road. He
yelled out the open jeep window flap.

“Pull over!”

She shook her head no.

“I said pull over!” He motioned for her to do
so again.

She rolled her window down. “Over my dead
body!”

“If you insist!”

Her eyes widened even more as she glared. “Go
away! Leave me alone.” She shouted over the whir of wheels on
asphalt.

“I want my car!” Andrew shouted back,
watching her ponytail billow around her neck in the wind. He’d like
to put his hands around that long, slender neck.

They glared at each other.

“Pull over before we kill ourselves,” he
ordered again, peering over his glasses at her.

“No!” she shouted back.

Andrew shook his head and tensed his shoulder
muscles, then as he glanced back to the road in front of him, he
saw a large animal bolt out from his side of the road.

“Donkey!” He slammed his foot on the
brake.

Tasha’s startled gaze caught his. “What?”

“Look out!”

But her vehicle sped forward as he screeched
to a halt. He watched her head snap back to the road in front of
her, then saw her brake lights flash. She skidded, leaving gravel
spray on the road behind her.

Concentrating on keeping his own vehicle
upright and on the road, Andrew was still conscious of Tasha’s
taillights fishtailing back and forth in front of him. When he felt
the right side of his Jeep drop off the edge of the pavement and
sink into wet, sandy shoulder, stopping jerking the Jeep entirely
off the road, he cursed and then—

Then he heard the crunch of metal
against...against something very hard.

Dazed for a moment, Andrew shook his head
until he could see clearly again. The Miata was off the side of the
road ahead of him, its nose pointing into a huge boulder. Oh, God,
no. He never intended for her to be hurt. He’d just wanted—

“Damn, Powell. You are an idiot!”