Shadowed Paradise (33 page)

It was an impasse. Even the workmen sensed
that all was not well. When the Boss disappeared into the trailer
several times a day, there was the usual spate of ribald remarks:
“Hey, Kevin, you see that trailer rockin’?” was among the cleaner
comments drifting out of the model. But, frequently, the remarks
were more cynical than suggestive: “It ain’t his dick that’s
rockin’. It’s that woman’s tongue.”

“
Don’t bet she can get a word in
edgewise. Brad’s got the slickest tongue in the county.”

“
Now that depends on what he’s doin’
with it, don’t it?”

Fortunately, the words never penetrated the
solid wood of the trailer, and Claire was spared the discovery that
she and the Boss were the workmen’s hottest topic of conversation.
They liked Brad Blue. He was almost one of them. If he wanted an
uppity woman, well, that was all right. But they hoped the two
would reach an agreement soon. Brad’s temper, notoriously thin, was
hanging by a thread. And they were all suffering for it.

Claire waved goodbye to the
about-to-be-retired couple she had just shown through the model,
mounted the three steps to the trailer and began to enter the
latest visitors in Amber Run’s new customer database. The couple
had oo-ed and ah-ed and were gratifyingly cheerful about imagining
carpets and kitchen appliances, a washer and a dryer. Never having
been in a Key West before, they were fascinated by Claire’s short
history of the Little Cracker Shack that Grew, the ecological and
economical advantages of broad covered decks shading banks of
easily opened windows, the added air circulation from the cupola,
the beauty and pleasure of life among the tree tops.

If only all her customers were as nice as
these two from Michigan. There’d been a few who should not have
strayed from the high-rise condos along the beach. With a sigh
Claire noticed her Screen Saver had kicked in, proudly proclaiming
Amber Run in gold lettering against an azure background. Time for a
seventh-inning stretch. She retrieved a bottle of peach-flavored
iced tea from the small refrigerator tucked under the counter,
perched on top of her desk and gazed out the window at the activity
around the nearly completed model.

The painters had been working on the outside
all day. Now, three men were lined up, their backs to Claire,
surveying the finished work. Brad towered above the gray-haired
construction foreman. The boss of the painting crew was easily
identified by his white coverall and painter’s cap. Their feet
firmly planted on the yet-to-be-sodded dirt, only their uptilted
heads moved as each man conducted his own inch-by-inch examination
of the woodwork as seriously as if contemplating world disarmament.
Claire’s lips twitched.

Suddenly the painter broke formation.
Squatting down on one knee, he bent his head, knuckled his
forehead. Claire choked. When would she stop selling the residents
of Calusa County short? The painter, catching the amusement in
their inspection lineup, was doing a remarkable impromptu imitation
of Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker.

Her day considerably brighter, Claire sat
down at the computer, jiggled her mouse, and went back to work.

By the end of her first week on the job
Claire no longer had to resort to: “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m going
to have to ask the developer about that. May I get back to you?”
The right responses to even the most difficult questions rolled
easily off her tongue. The publicity push wouldn’t begin until the
model’s formal opening, but a steady trickle of visitors appeared
from nothing more than the colorful Open House flags at the
entrance to Amber Run. Fortunately, there were still nature lovers,
boaters, and fishermen who had not been obliterated by the horde of
newcomers whose image of the Florida lifestyle was concrete condo
towers or endless rows of ground-hugging stucco ranches spaced
twenty feet apart.

On Claire’s fifth day on the job, she’d
written her first contract. A couple from New Jersey bought the
smallest of the projected three models, a home which was, at
present, little more than a framework perched on stilts. But the
floor plans were clear; the setting and the right price clinched
the deal. Two years from retirement, the couple would lease the
model back to Amber Run, covering a major portion of their monthly
mortgage, thus making both Buyer and Seller equally pleased with
the transaction.

The relationship between the developer of
Amber Run and his Marketing Director/Sales Manager was not as
satisfactory. During one of their closely watched moments alone in
the trailer Brad’s temper flared as he demanded that Claire set a
date for the wedding. That night after Jamie went to bed Claire sat
at home feigning interest in a Cary Grant movie, which had so
captured her grandmother’s fancy that Ginny hadn’t done more than
raise an eyebrow when Claire failed to rush to the Toyota for her
nightly drive to Palm Court.

While Claire waited for the phone to ring and
Brad’s growl to demand where the hell she was, she gritted her
teeth over the blatant, and all-too-familiar, male superiority
displayed by the most suave leading man in Hollywood history.
Claire kept reminding herself that Florida’s senior citizens were
the perfect market for these vintage movies, but she was strongly
tempted to throw something at the screen.

By the time the movie ended, the phone
had not rung. Ginny gave Claire one piercing glance and calmly said
goodnight. Claire fixed a glass of iced tea, attempted to read the
latest
Time
. The phone
remained ominously silent. Three times Claire picked it up to make
sure it was still working. Each time the hum of the dial tone
mocked her. Twice she almost broke down and made the call
herself.

Miserable Russian cracker. He was so
disgustingly superior, so completely confident he knew best. She
wouldn’t be pushed. Absolutely, positively
not
.

The phone never rang. Claire’s pillowcase was
so soaked by tears she had to crawl out of bed and change it before
she finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

When Claire opened the trailer door at ten
the next morning, Brad was waiting for her. As she slipped by him,
taking refuge behind her computer console, he turned the deadbolt,
placed his back against the door, folded his arms across his chest.
“So what games are we playing now?” he inquired coolly.

“
I’m sorry,” Claire ground out. “It was
childish, but you’re being so damn stubborn . . .”

“
Stubborn!
Me?
”

“
Why can’t we just go on as we are—for
a little while? Give me some time? You can’t imagine the hurt . .
.”

Brad raised one blond brow. “Really?”

Claire, recalling that he had come home after
a long, undoubtedly dangerous mission to find his wife had left
him, clenched her hands in her lap and was silent.

“
Okay,” Brad conceded, “Phil’s still
alive and I’ve never had a child kidnapped, but children happen to
be very high on my list of priorities. I want a wife, kids, dogs,
cats, carpools, the whole nine yards. I’ve waited so damn long, I
don’t feel like spending any more time watching only the grass
grow.”

Brad’s shoulders parted company with
the door. In two steps he was towering over her. “I want you in my
bed. Every night. I want my
wife
in my bed every night. And,” he added with ominous emphasis,
“if I don’t have you in my bed every night, I’ll damn well have you
when I can get you.”

With a feral growl low in his throat, Brad
hauled Claire out of her chair. Or had she sprung at him, hormones
raging, like some love-starved maniac? In a wild flurry of lowered
jeans and upthrust skirt, backed against the battered old desk in a
position Claire would have sworn was physically impossible, they
came together as if they had been apart for a century. Only later
would Claire feel the ridge gouged into her back by the edge of the
desk as they were swept by a kaleidoscope of frenzy, passion,
guilt, remorse, and downright lust melding into a blinding climax
that swept them both into a vortex of sensation where problems did
not exist and love, once again, obliterated all.

The trailer rocked.

The workmen smirked.

The issue of marriage remained
unresolved.

Even two days later memory of what they’d
done—and how and where—caused a slow burn to creep up Claire’s
neck. How naive could she be? Just because Jim never . . .

No matter. At the moment Brad was tip-toeing
around the marriage issue, and that was what she wanted. Wasn’t it?
Who knew better than she that the reward for blind faith could be
betrayal? Of love and trust. Of life itself.

She could still see the dark suits, the
precise ties, the uncompromising faces. Hear the endless questions
. . .
Come on, Claire, you were at Jake
Chelsea’s houseparty in the Hamptons . . . Bastard buys more arms
and ammo than most governments. You can’t possibly say you didn’t
know what he does for a living.

“
Hello, Claire.”

It wasn’t possible. She had conjured him from
an overactive imagination. She’d heard no car, no sound of feet on
the wooden steps. The door simply opened, and her worst nightmares
became reality.

Claire blinked, hoping the dark shadow in the
doorway would go away. But he was still there. Brown hair, blue
eyes, innocuous boy-next-door face. But unlike the image in her
memory, he was wearing the Florida businessman’s summer uniform of
dark trousers and long-sleeved white shirt. Although the best of
the alphabet agents, Doug Chalmers was still high on the list of
people Claire never wanted to see again.

“
Doug,” Claire acknowledged faintly.
“Aren’t you a bit far from your territory?”

“
Special assignment,” Chalmers returned
easily, “and not what you’re thinking.” He stepped into the
trailer, allowing another man, a stranger, to step in behind him.
Doug introduced him as Paul Markham, an FBI agent working out of
the office in Manatee Bay.

“
So?” Claire inquired after a cool
acknowledgment of the local agent.

“
I hear you may have run into a
stalker,” Doug said.

Claire simply stared at him. “You came all
the way here,” she said, totally incredulous, “because of the
incident at the mall?”

“
Close,” Chalmers admitted with a
slight shrug. “We’re still trying to make cases against the
wiseguys who did business with InterBank. Someone named Brad Blue
contacted the agency, thought we ought to know what happened.
Evidently, he has some powerful connections, enough to get instant
attention. Blue felt we ought to consider the possibility your
experience could be related to a much older problem than some local
stalker. Let’s face it, the other side is probably just as certain
as my bosses are that you know more than you’re
telling.”

“
It’s over,” Claire cried. “Done. Can’t
they see that?”

“
So maybe I’m convinced,” Chalmers
admitted. “Others aren’t.”

No!
This wasn’t
fair. It wasn’t right. She’d escaped. She was free. The nightmare
couldn’t be starting up again.

Brad brought this curse down upon her
head.

“
It was probably nothing, nothing at
all,” she protested feebly.

“
If there’s one thing I learned about
you, Claire, it’s that you’re not inclined to exaggerate,” Chalmers
replied gravely. “You’re level-headed . . . and a hell of lot
tougher than you look.”

“
I guess that’s a compliment,” Claire
murmured. Grudgingly.

“
We think what happened to you is worth
investigating,” Doug added, “which I why I brought Paul along with
me. He’ll be keeping an eye on the situation.”

A blast of sunlight and hot air flooded the
trailer as Brad came in, hastily shutting the door behind him.
Claire glowered at her desktop while the men introduced themselves.
She was close to the point of nausea, her stomach in knots, heart
pounding. Brad had betrayed her to the enemy. Not that the FBI was
the enemy; intellectually, she knew that. Jim had been working with
them as their chief informant on InterBank. And yet . . . he hadn’t
delivered the goods. He hadn’t lived to take the witness stand, and
in the end she had lost it all—husband, house, Manhattan apartment,
bank accounts, prestige . . . Respectability.

And nearly lost Jamie as well.

“
Claire?” Brad’s voice, soft but firm,
penetrated her pain.

Overcoming a new wave of nausea, Claire
forced herself to repeat the details of the incident at the mall
exactly as she had told Brad. The three men nodded, glanced at each
other over her bent head and pale face, and kept their questions
low-key. Claire fixed her eyes on her clasped hands, barely raising
her head when the two agents thanked her and left, assuring Brad
they would be in touch.

In touch. It was starting again. Another
plunge into the whirlpool. And Brad, leaning back against the
counter and calmly waiting for her to explode, had done this to
her. His wasn’t the cruelest betrayal of the past two years, but at
the moment it filled her life. How could she live with a man who at
one moment so overwhelmed her that she lost all control of her
passions, and then turned around and stabbed her in the back? Two
days ago they had made love in a delirium of desire right in this
very spot. Last night they had enjoyed the full expanse of Brad’s
kingsize bed. And today?

Today Brad Blue had joined the enemy.