Welcome to Paradise (13 page)

 
“It’s hard,” he agreed, “but that’s the good thing. The focus. No multitasking possible. If you’re cutting down a tree, you can’t be checking your messages. And there’s time to think.”

“Is that why you came too? Not because you want a career as a glamorous TV doctor? I bet you could get one.”

He chuckled.
“Not hardly.
We’d like to win, of course,” he acknowledged. “For its own sake, just like Scott. But it’d sure be nice to get all my student loans paid off too. That’s my rehearsal for my why-I-deserve-a-million-dollars speech. How does it grab you?”

“Bad.” She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “I’d go with the sick grandmother option.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. But maybe I should save that one for you.”

“I doubt I’ll need it. Pretty obvious that second place is the most I can possibly hope for, and even that’s looking like a major stretch goal. So I’d better be getting all I can out of the experience, for as long as I’ve got. And that’s what I intend to do.”

“That’s the other part for me too,” he said. “I came here to enjoy it, if you can use that word for something this hard. And I thought it’d be good for Alec, though I pretty much had to drag him along kicking and screaming. He doesn’t do downtime too well. Pretty much lives his life at full tilt. Not that my own life has been much different. Seems like I’m running hard just to stay in place a lot of the time. College, med school, establishing my practice, all that.”

“Not that it’s wrong to set goals,” he went on hastily as she looked intently up at him, “and that’s what life is anyway. It’s about
working,
you and I both know that. But I’ve started to wonder, out here, if there’s any way to make things not quite so . . . complicated. Because this is hard, but it’s not complicated, is it?
So, yeah.
Besides the money, I’m here for the same reason as you. A break, a chance to think about what I could do differently. Alec needed it too, I was right about that. It’s been good for him already.”

“Did you get to talk to him, then, yesterday?”

“A bit,” he shrugged. “Not much. But I can tell.”

“The twin thing,” she guessed.

“Yeah.” He smiled down at her, the deep blue eyes warm, and she felt the little hitch in her breath that that
smile
always aroused. “The twin thing.”

“OK,” Mira said, taking a final sip of her coffee before getting up from the breakfast table the next morning. “Garden time. You done, Maria-Elena?”

“Yeah.” The girl finished a last bite of biscuit and stood up herself without too much of a sigh.

“That’s the downside of voting somebody out,” Stanley said sympathetically. “More work for everybody else.”

“Well, not as much as it might’ve been. Considering it was Melody,” Zara said tartly. “More for Mira, mostly, having to pick up her share of garden duty.”

“I don’t mind,” Mira said. It was almost true. She liked being outside, at least until the day got too hot. Zara was doing enough in the cabin. She was the best baker, and it only made sense for her to do the breakfast dishes and then
get
started on the day’s bread while the younger women tackled the heavier work of weeding and watering.

“I’ll churn the butter later,” Mira promised Zara. “In time for lunch.”

“
Mmm
, buttermilk,” Stanley said with satisfaction. “I’d forgotten how good a glass of cold buttermilk could taste.”

Mira made a face. “It’s obviously an acquired taste. I like it in the biscuits, but . . .”

Stanley laughed. “Good thing we don’t all like it as much as I do, or there wouldn’t
be
any for the biscuits.”

Mira pulled her sunbonnet off the nail near the door, picked up a bucket, and stepped outside. There was still a bit of morning chill in the air, always
a help
when she was hauling water from the creek.
 

She saw the movement behind the rails of the half-completed fence while she and Maria-Elena were still thirty yards away. Something brown.
Something . . . big.

“It’s a bear!” Maria-Elena shrieked, turning to run.

“It’s not a bear,” Mira snapped back at her, picking up her skirts and running in the opposite direction, toward the fence. “It’s a cow! Run get the guys!”

It
was
a
cow,
she confirmed when she’d made it around the edge of the half-built fence.
And a calf.
Their
cow and calf.
Eating her carefully tended lettuce!

She slowed her steps, feeling the annoyingly tight boning of the corset, digging into her ribs as always and making deep breaths difficult. She didn’t want to spook the cow, make her run and trample the vegetables any more than, she saw with dismay, she already had. Half their chard bore the marks of
hoofprints
, and, worst of all, a fresh cow pie.

She walked closer, talking softly to the big animal until she got close enough to grab the rope hanging from her halter. Led her to the edge of the planted area, wincing as the huge hooves landed on spinach leaves the entire way.

Gabe and Kevin were running toward her now on the opposite side of the fence. The calf, seeing all the activity, decided that this was a delightful game and began frisking around the garden, each playful bounce flattening another tender plant.

“Take her back to the corral, Mira,” Gabe called to her, closing in with Kevin on the calf from either side. “The calf will want to follow.”

All the same, she’d had the cow back in the corral, with the gate carefully secured, for five minutes before the men appeared leading the calf.

“Good job getting hold of her so fast,” Gabe said, “and keeping her calm, too. If
she’d
started running around, we’d really have been in trouble.”

“We were able to herd this guy mostly over by the potatoes,” he went on, tying the little animal securely to the fence, “so he wouldn’t trample anything we wanted to eat, at least. And I don’t think they did all that much damage. They can’t have been in there that long. Just during breakfast.”

“How did it happen?” Mira asked. “How did they get out?”

“I have a sneaking suspicion I know,” Kevin volunteered. He pointed to Stanley and Martin in the distance, leading the two horses back by their halter ropes. “And that we’re about to find out for sure.”

“I’ll go back to the garden. See what’s destroyed, and what we can salvage,” Mira decided. She didn’t need to be part of this.

“There must be something wrong with the latch,” Martin was still protesting ten minutes later. “Or they must have opened it.”

“Cows aren’t that smart,” Stanley replied. “They haven’t figured out how to lift a rope over a post just yet.”

“Yeah, I don’t think they teach that at Cow University,” Kevin agreed. “Now, if we had a chimpanzee in here . . .”

“One of the horses could have nudged it over, maybe,” Martin persisted. “Horses are smart, right? I’m sure I fastened the rope on.”

“Just say you must have forgotten,” Gabe said in exasperation. “It’s not a crime to screw up. But it sure as hell is one not to admit it.”

“I didn’t screw up, though.” Martin dug in his heels, flushed and flustered with defensive anger. “I fastened it! I’m sure of it!”

 
“This is getting us nowhere fast,” Stanley said with finality. “What’s done is done. We’d better get that garden fence finished, that’s the bottom line. How bad is it?” he asked Gabe.

Gabe shrugged. “We’re going to be a little low on salad greens, but could’ve been worse. If you’re OK working without me for a while, I’ll go see what I can do to help clean things up over there.”

“What do you think?” he asked Stanley three days later, reaching out to shake a fence post, testing its set in the ground. “Another day?”

“Yeah,” the older man answered, tipping back his hat and wiping his brow with a red bandana he pulled from a pocket. “Finish it tomorrow, while the women are doing the laundry. We’ll have it done before the challenge. All of us sleeping in the loft . . . that’ll be a novelty.”

“Might not be crowded in there, all the same, for more than a night,” Gabe said with meaning. “If we win on Saturday.”

“Yeah. That’s really the only choice, isn’t it?
He’s tried hard enough
,
give him credit for that
. But he’s like John said.
A menace out here.
Now, Kevin . . . I thought at the beginning that he’d be the dead weight, but he’s shaped up right nicely.”

“You ever worked with a gay man before?” Gabe asked with a smile. “New experience?”

“Not that I know of, I haven’t. And I wouldn’t have said I was prejudiced. We’re all God’s children, that’s the idea, isn’t it? But I never had one for a friend either. I guess I had some bias after all, because I didn’t expect much, going in.”

“Well, to be fair,” Gabe acknowledged, “I wouldn’t say Kevin came across as much of a he-man at the beginning. I think he’s surprised himself.”

“And among the women . . .” Stanley went on. “Maria-Elena would be first there, you ask me. She’s a real sweet girl, and working harder than I would’ve expected, but the other two are better. But all that’s down the road. Martin first.”

“If we win,” Gabe corrected.

“Yeah,” Stanley said heavily. “If we lose, I’m pretty worried about our Miss Mira. Hoping it’ll be Arlene on the other side, but . . .”

“He’s not popular,” Gabe agreed. “Alec knows I don’t want Mira leaving, but there’s no love lost between him and Scott.”

“Well, then.” Stanley shot him a penetrating glance. “If it’s important to you, I guess we’d better win.”

Mira crouched by the creek, dipped her bucket into the cold, clear water, then straightened and turned. For some reason that made perfect sense at the moment, she was barefoot, wearing only her chemise, fully transparent in the strong sunlight. Showing all those beautiful curves, the luscious peach of her skin glowing through the thin fabric.

She saw him standing there, and her face lit up with her slow, sweet smile. As he watched, she set her bucket down, reached for the hem of the garment, pulled it slowly over her head, and tossed it aside, her eyes on him all the while. Pulled out the pins holding her hair in a knot at the back of her head, shook her head so it fell around her shoulders, down her back. And then just stood there, naked and glorious, and looked at him, that smile warming him, beckoning him. Inviting him.

“WOOF!”
The deep, sharp sound of Daisy’s warning bark shot Gabe straight out of the dream. He sat up with a start, fumbled to disentangle
himself
from the twisted blankets as the barking frenzy began in earnest.

“Shit!” He threw the blankets aside at last, searched in vain for his boots,
heard
the vicious snarling amongst the barks. “Coyotes!”

“I’ve got it!” Martin said, breathing hard with excitement. Gabe finally located his boots and pulled them on. Heard, to his instant alarm, the sound of the shotgun being broken
open,
then slammed closed again. Struggled to see Martin in the inadequate starlight, caught sight of him running toward the chicken coop.
Toward
the noise of the continuing struggle.
Toward the cabin.

“Wait!” he shouted urgently. “Hold on! Martin! Stop!”

The blast of the big gun, then, splitting the night like a blow from an axe.
The snarling ceasing, the barking continuing, fading now.
Daisy, chasing the pack of coyotes as they fled.
 

“Got ’
em
!” Martin laughed triumphantly as Gabe ran up to him, a cameraman close behind. The gun was still aimed at the cabin, and Gabe knocked the barrels skyward before snatching the heavy thing from the other man’s hands.

“You
idiot!”
he snarled, rage and fear fighting for ascendancy. “Are you trying to kill somebody?”

“What do you mean?” Martin fired angrily back. “They were trying to get our chickens, and I chased them off!”

“You shot at the
house!”
Pure fear, now.
“Oh, God. What did you hit?” Gabe saw the glow of light, the door opening as the others began to pour out of the little structure.
Stanley in the lead, the lantern in his hand.
 

“You guys OK?” Stanley asked. “What happened?”

 
“Is everyone here? Everyone all right?” Gabe strained to see past the pool of light, his night vision destroyed now. “Count heads.”

“All here,” Stanley said with relief as Kevin appeared, still buttoning his pants. “What happened?”

“Martin took a shot at the cabin, is what happened,” Gabe answered grimly, shaking with anger and the residue of adrenaline.
 

“OK, I’m sorry. Sorry,” Martin gabbled. “I misjudged, that’s all. No big deal. Everyone’s OK. No harm done. Just an accident.”

“What the
hell
were you thinking?” Gabe demanded.

“I was scaring them off!” Martin protested. “Like John told us to do!”

“He also told us,” Stanley pointed out, his voice uncharacteristically cold, “that you never aim a gun at anything you’re not intending to kill.
No thanks to you that you
didn’t
kill anyone.
Because that hit the cabin.
There was one heck of a thud. Didn’t hear any glass breaking, so I don’t think it hit any windows, thank the good Lord.”

“It was below our window, I think,” Mira said, her voice a little shaky. “The one in our loft. I felt it . . . hit.”

Gabe looked at her in alarm. “It didn’t hit the window?”

“No. No. I was standing right there. I heard it, and felt it. But it didn’t break the glass.”

“You were
standing
there?”

“I heard all the noise. The dog, and then the shouting,” Mira said, her explanation coming out in choppy bursts. “And I got up to see. But Martin’s right. Nothing hit the window.”

Gabe looked at her as closely as the inadequate light allowed. Realized she was trembling.
The night air, the shock.
“Let’s go inside, out of the cold,” he said abruptly. “No reason for us all to be standing around out here.”

He didn’t breathe easily until more lanterns had been lit and he’d seen for himself that Mira truly wasn’t hurt, merely shaken. “Time to break out that medicinal whiskey,” he decided. “Kevin and Maria-Elena, go grab some blankets from the lofts. We all need to get warm and calm down.”

Once everyone else had their allotment of whiskey and were beginning to laugh and joke in a release of tension, he and Stanley climbed the ladder to the women’s loft, examined the window.

“Nothing. Not even a crack. That was damn lucky,” Stanley said soberly, measuring the bottom of the frame against his body. “I don’t know how close it did come, of course. Guess we’ll see in the morning. But this was Martin’s last piece of guard duty. I’ll stay out with you the rest of tonight.”

“He’s got to go,” Gabe said with finality. “We’d better win this next challenge, because
enough’s
enough. He’s got to go.”

He was even
more sure
of it the next morning when they were all standing under the loft window under Danny’s watchful lens, looking at the wall of the cabin just below the sill. At the hundreds of tiny black pellets embedded in the logs, forming a circular pattern almost two feet in diameter.

“That’s what you did,” Stanley told Martin grimly. “If you’d aimed just a foot or so higher, Mira standing at that window . . .”

Martin shifted uncomfortably. “But I wasn’t higher,” he pointed out weakly. “And it’s ammunition to kill birds, right? So it wouldn’t really have hurt her badly, would it?”

“At that range?” Stanley said. “You bet it would’ve, huh, Gabe?”

Gabe swallowed as his vivid imagination painted the picture.
Birdshot and glass shards.
“Yeah,” he said shortly, mindful of Mira standing silently nearby. “Yeah, it wouldn’t have been good.”

“Excitement’s over,” Zara said briskly. “Back to work. We’ve got a challenge this afternoon, and plenty to do before it.”

“You OK,
hon
?” Gabe heard her ask Mira as the women turned back. “Want me to do the garden?”

“No.” Mira shook her head decisively. “Of course not. I’m fine. It was close, that’s all. And close doesn’t count, except in horseshoes. Like they say.”