Escapade

He yawned. “Brad and I don’t bother with bathing suits when we’ve got the island to ourselves.” He glanced at her. “I don’t doubt that you’ve got white stripes all over, though.”

Without looking at him she said, “With my luck, one of my neighbors would be hiding in the bushes with a videocamera, and I’d be on the six o’clock news for indecent exposure.”

“There are spoilsports everywhere,” he murmured. “I’m tired.” He sounded faintly surprised.

“You never sleep,” she said. “I’m amazed that you haven’t collapsed.”

“I’m indestructible.”

“Nobody is. When was the last time you had a physical?”

“I’ve got one scheduled in two weeks,” he said. “My board of directors insists on it once a year.”

He didn’t add that this year he’d gotten the courage to request an additional, private test. He wished now that he’d left it alone. Part of him didn’t want confirmation of something that he’d suspected for several years; another part wanted to be sure.

“Good for them,” Amanda said. “None of us want you to drop dead, you know.”

“Are you sure about that? I’m the only thing standing between you and the Gazette.”

“You and my father’s will,” she emphasized. She sat up, looking down at him with soft green eyes. “And I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. Not ever. Not for money or any other reason.”

His eyes were very dark. They narrowed and ran slowly down to the V neck of her sleeveless T-shirt and back up again to her oval face with its exquisite expression. He found that looking at her gave him pleasure. It also kindled a curiosity that he was tired of fighting.

Something inside him caught fire, burned. She was untouched, and he wanted her. Needed her. Was desperate for her. He could stand only so much, and the temptation she’d unwittingly offered him had made him restless and unable to sleep, even to work these last few days. He let out a slow breath and gave in to it. Just once, he told himself. No heavy stuff, and just...this once.

He sat up, very slowly. His hand went to her mouth. He drew the tip of his forefinger softly over the curve of her lower lip, smearing lipstick and nerves as he held her eyes. His gaze fell to her soft mouth, and he bent his head. “This is not the best idea I’ve ever had. But kiss me anyway, Amanda,” he breathed as he leaned forward and his hard mouth fit itself slowly over hers.

Amanda’s whole body clenched with tense pleasure. It was the first time—the very first time, despite her dreams of years past. The sweet shock of his mouth on her soft lips made her whimper and curl into him like ivy. She reached up, straining to get her arms around his neck. The kiss she’d wanted so badly was hers now, and she was drowning in it, being seared by it. Her body felt as if it were on fire. It throbbed and ached in the oddest places, and she felt her long, elegant legs trembling as he drew her across his body and began to deepen the kiss.

The only men she’d ever kissed had been, for the most part, students at college. One or two of them had been experienced, but the majority had been like her—shy and introverted and not very experienced. She couldn’t ever remember being tempted to go to bed with any of them.

But with Josh she felt differently. Perhaps their long friendship made him more acceptable to her, or perhaps it was the barely tamed sensuality of his mouth that devastated her senses. Whatever the explanation, she collapsed like an alcoholic drowning in liquor the minute he touched her.

He seemed to know it, because he tempered his ardor to match her lack of experience. She stiffened when he gathered her hips against the aroused thrust of his own. He loosened his hold, concentrating instead on teasing her mouth with his tongue, nipping it gently with his teeth. She relaxed, and when she did, his hands slid back to her hips and tugged coaxingly until her belly was completely against his.

Memories of his hands on another woman’s hips, pulling her to him as he loomed over her in the moonlit darkness filtered through Amanda’s mind.

She gasped under his mouth, and he lifted his head with obvious reluctance.

“Does it disturb you that I’m aroused?” he asked huskily.

“Yes,” she confessed with embarrassment, hiding her face in his chest.

He took deep breaths. His heartbeat was shaking his powerful body, but he didn’t try to force her to accept anything she didn’t want.

He lifted her chin and searched her eyes slowly, seeing the desire and fear mingling there. That, and the adoration that she was too inexperienced to hide. She was deeply infatuated with him. He’d known it for years, but until now he’d managed not to do anything about it.

He drew in a long, ragged breath and moved away from her. “No,” he said quietly. “I can’t handle this, Amanda.”

She licked her lips and tasted him on them. He looked as unsettled as she felt, but he was fighting the feeling. And winning. He got to his feet and lit a cigar as he walked down to the surf.

By the time he came back, Amanda had everything in the hamper. She tried to act as if nothing had happened.

He reached down to pick up his shirt, knowing Amanda watched his nude torso.

Still aroused, he turned away, dragging the shirt over his head. This wouldn’t do. It really wouldn’t. Her mouth was the closest he’d ever been to heaven, but he wouldn’t start something he couldn’t finish.

“We’d better go,” he said quietly. “Brad should be back soon. I want to know how he made out.”

“I’m ready when you are,” she said pleasantly.

He took the hamper, and she walked silently beside him back to the launch.

On the way back, their uncomfortable silence was broken by a sudden gale. It wasn’t at all frightening to her. Nothing was, with Josh at the controls. She’d seen him in all sorts of dangerous situations over the years. Once, a sudden squall had come up when they were in the twin-engine plane he’d owned before the Learjet. His cool nerve and unruffled competence had stayed with her as he’d turned what could have been a tragic accident into an adventure.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked on the way across to New Providence, his voice sounding odd in the purr of the engines.

“About how well you handle danger,” she replied honestly. “You’re very cool under fire.”

“I had extensive training, having to face my board of directors with expansion proposals,” he said dryly. “It takes nerve to make money.”

“Don’t I know it.” She grimaced. “I don’t know if I’ll have anything to inherit when I’m twenty-five. It looks as if Ward Johnson is going to lose it all,” she said irritably. “His mind isn’t really on the job lately.”

“Give it up,” he advised. “You ought to know by now that I don’t budge when I think I’m right.” His fingers danced over the controls as Opal Cay came into view on the horizon. “Hold tight.”

He pushed the throttle forward, and his dark eyes danced as he fought the squall and the whitecaps on the way in to the small marina.

When they were on the pier, he smiled with wicked amusement at the look on her face. “I thought you trusted me at the controls.”

“I do. But I really don’t like getting into anything that’s over my head.”

“Don’t you?” In his dark eyes there was a soft, sensual threat that made her pulse leap. But he didn’t follow up on it. He took her arm and the hamper and walked briskly toward the house.

Dinner that night was delicious, but Amanda had no real appetite. The lethal combination of Josh’s sexy company and the certainty that she had to go back to Texas soon took the edge off the pleasure of the evening.

“Do you want something else?” he asked with concern.

“It’s not the food. It’s wonderful,” she said. She put down her fork. “I really have to go back.”

“Why?” he asked irritably. “Are you afraid the business will fail in a week if you aren’t there to save it?”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” she said. “And that just might be the case, even if you won’t believe me.”

“Don’t try to live your life in a flaming rush, Amanda,” he cautioned. “You’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Have I?” She looked down at his hand on the white linen cloth, with its dark tan and scattering of blond-tipped brown hair. “The most exciting thing I’ve ever done was to go to a professional wrestling match where the audience became the feature attraction.”

He chuckled. “I remember. I had to rescue you. As I recall,” he added with malicious glee, “you started it.”

She shifted restlessly. “Well, they called my favorite wrestler a bum and started cheering for that madman who was stomping his face.”

“And you rushed to his rescue.”

“Somebody had to!”

He burst out laughing, his dark eyes soft with indulgent humor. “You’re delightful, did you know? You don’t primp for hours, you don’t demand diamonds and furs, you don’t even insist on going the party rounds every night. You’re unique as a companion.”

“Unique as yours, I suppose,” she said without looking at him. “Or don’t you usually take your dinner companions to bed?”

“If I didn’t respect you so much, I’d take you there in a minute,” he replied easily. He finished his cocktail. “But we share too much history. I have nothing to offer you,” he said solemnly. “Nothing at all.”

The finality with which he made the statement chilled her. The bleak look in his eyes puzzled her, because coexisting with it was a frank, blistering hot hunger.

“You want me,” he said suddenly. “But you still aren’t quite sure how you want me, are you, Amanda? You’re looking for fairy-tale situations, roses and perfume, happily ever after.”

“No,” she began, unsure of where this conversation was going.

“A relationship isn’t all candlelight and soft music, honey,” he said quietly. “It’s raw and sensual, and people get hurt. A man changes when he’s been with a woman he desires.”

“Yes. He doesn’t want her anymore,” she said knowledgeably.

“Not always,” he said sharply. “Sometimes he wants her all the time, to the exclusion of business, honor, morality, anything! That happened to me with Terri. I got careless because I needed her so badly. That’s why you saw us that night on the beach. I thought of nothing but her body, was so enthralled by it that I couldn’t go even one night without having it. She was just as hungry for me. That kind of attraction can blind you, even when love isn’t involved.”

“Oh.”

“That kind of desperation leaves you out of control,” he persisted. “It can convince you to make love in a parked car in the middle of rush hour traffic. That’s why I don’t have love affairs anymore. I have casual encounters that end almost as soon as they begin.” He dropped his eyes to her hands, which were locked together on the table. “I hate addiction. I smoke cigars instead of cigarettes because they’re easier to give up. I drink brandy, not whiskey, because I can take it or leave it. I never have more than one drink at a party, because I don’t want the risk of losing control.”

Amanda had known these things, but she also knew he was addicted to smoking, whether or not he admitted it to himself. It cut her heart to know that he wanted no deep relationship again. Because she did.

He got to his feet. “I have to meet someone at the airport in Nassau. Ted’s going to take me over in the launch.”

“All right.”

He paused, staring down at her. “You and I have been friends for a long time. I don’t want to lose that because we touched each other and flames kindled, or because you want something in business that I don’t want to give you.”

“You’ll always be my friend, Josh,” she said, smiling tightly. “I hope I’ll always be yours.”

He moved closer to her chair and, leaning a hand on the table, bent so that his face was much too near. His breath brushed her lips when he spoke.

“I owe you more than a broken heart.”

She reached up and touched his face. It tautened, and his eyes kindled.

“Do you want me?” she asked in a husky whisper.

“I’m bleeding to death for you,” he replied, his voice rough with passion. “And do you know what I’m going to do about it?”

Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “No. What?”

“Absolutely nothing.” He moved away from her, and the tension in his body was visible. “It’s the only noble thing I’ve ever done in my life. How’s that for a joke?”

He laughed bitterly. A minute later he was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE

BRAD CLOSED THE deal in Montego Bay, but he took his time getting back to Opal Cay. He had real problems. He had to find a way to cover his bets before he lost something more precious than money. He needed cash, fast. His only hope was to persuade Josh to pull his irons out of the fire one more time. But that wasn’t really likely. Josh didn’t understand weaknesses, because he didn’t have any. He wasn’t vulnerable. Calculated business decisions were his life. He was one of the world’s strongest people, who never leaned or needed to lean on others. How could he possibly understand a passion for gambling? Not, Brad reflected, that he couldn’t quit whenever he wanted to. It’s just that until now, he hadn’t wanted to. Next time, for sure.

He felt something cold suddenly splash against his suit sleeve.

“OhmigodI’msorry!” tumbled out of the waitress’s pretty mouth. She was wearing a spandex skirt that barely covered the top of her thighs, with a clinging white body shirt open over the taut swell of brown breasts. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and incredibly sexy. So sexy that he didn’t notice the brown stain on his spotless gray suit sleeve or feel the wetness.

“Hello,” he murmured sensually.

“Hello!” she replied, grinning. Her hair was full of colorful, lacy bows. “I’m Barbara, your waitress.”

“Brad Lawson,” he replied, letting his eyes run down her. The five-star restaurant wasn’t crowded this evening. Except for himself and about five couples, it was practically empty. There was this walking dessert here, of course.

Her eyes grew big. “Really?” she asked. “Are you Joshua Lawson’s brother?”

Big brother was known everywhere. He wondered if Josh had sampled this delight and decided that he probably hadn’t. Josh’s taste ran to brunettes. In that way, if no other, he was predictable.

“That’s who I am,” he agreed.

“Your brother had lunch here once,” she said, explaining how she knew him. “I was crying because my mother had gone to the hospital with a heart attack. Mr. Lawson squared it with my boss so that I could have time off to sit with her. He’s very nice.”

He smiled, relaxing. “Yes, he is. So am I, of course. I’m intelligent, handsome, rich, and incredibly modest.”

She laughed. “Are you?”

He put his hand over his heart, momentarily taken out of his woes. “Modest to a fault. Bring me a vat of fried oysters and I’ll make all your dreams come true.”

She blushed, but she giggled, too. “Could you?”

“Can sharks swim? Away with you! Get those oysters. Hurry, we don’t have a second to lose!”

She laughed. “All right. Would you like something to drink?”

“A glass of champagne. Champagne and oysters are the secret of Casanova’s success, I’m sure of it.”

“Well,” she murmured with subtle coquetry, “we’ll see, won’t we?”

His body tautened at the look in her eyes. He smiled slowly. He wouldn’t make it back to the cay tonight. He hoped Josh wouldn’t scream too loudly.

* * *

AMANDA WENT UP to her room early, bored with her own company. She heard Josh go out, but she was fast asleep when he came home. And Brad still hadn’t shown up by morning.

It was going on nine in the morning when Amanda phoned Mirri in San Antonio, before she went down to breakfast. She hadn’t spoken to her best friend since the funeral, and she was feeling fragile. Josh was driving her mad.

“Are you okay?” Mirri asked her immediately.

“I suppose, except for having to fight Josh at every turn,” she replied.

“Really?!” Mirri enthused. “How exciting!”

She was glad Mirri couldn’t see her telltale blush. “For a foothold at the newspaper, you idiot,” Amanda murmured with forced humor. She lay back on the green-and-white-patterned bedspread with a sigh, her long black hair radiating out from her face in soft waves. “I mean, it’s not going to be an easy road to upper-level management. My credentials don’t impress him.”

“All that brainwork wasted.” The other woman sighed. “Well, if at first you don’t succeed...”

“I didn’t really expect him to turn the whole enterprise over to me. He said that I don’t have the experience, and he’s right. But I can get it,” she added stubbornly. “I was at least hoping for partial control.”

“Don’t step on any toes,” she cautioned. “The reigning editor has chopped off more educated and talented employees than you know. He’s underhanded and unscrupulous when it comes to keeping his cozy nest. The only reason he keeps Joshua in the dark is because your new partner hardly ever has time to get a look in.”

“You’ve been working for the FBI too long,” Amanda pointed out. “You’re beginning to sound like an agent.”

“Don’t I wish.” Again she sighed. “I’m just a paralegal with big dreams and bad eyes. Do you know what Nelson Stuart told me? He actually said my red hair was too blatant for a government agent!”

“I didn’t think you were speaking to Mr. Stuart.”

“He’s the senior agent,” she muttered. “I have to speak to him. I thought I might try law school. He had something to say about that idea, too.”

“Well?”

“He said you needed a brain for that.”

“Maybe they’ll transfer him to someplace cold.”

“I volunteered him for Yuma, Arizona. I thought he’d feel more at home someplace hot.”

Amanda laughed. She’d seen the steely Mr. Stuart once. He was as dark as Joshua was fair, lean and cold-eyed and very much the lawman. He and the vivacious Mirri had been enemies from her first day at the San Antonio FBI office. The situation hadn’t improved much in two years. Mirri threatened to quit more often these days, of course. Mr. Stuart had asked that she be transferred. Neither one of them had had much luck. Or perhaps it was more a case of not wanting to have much luck. They were a very volatile couple, and Amanda often thought that it was as much due to a flaming attraction as it was to the hostility they camouflaged it with.

“When are you coming back?” Mirri asked. “You don’t have anybody to talk to over there, and I know Joshua can be hard on your nerves. Not that I don’t think a lot of him for taking such good care of you.”

“That’s for old times’ sake, I think,” Amanda said quietly. “I owe him a lot. He deserves so much more than a life of mergers and takeovers. It’s a pity that he never married and had children.”

“Joshua Lawson?!” Mirri exclaimed. “Married? Ha! That’ll be the day.” There was a pause. “On second thought, there was that South American heiress he was squiring around in New York last month. I forget her name, but they made the color insert in one of the grocery store tabloids. Josh is very handsome, isn’t he?”

Amanda didn’t want to think about Josh’s women. She knew he had them, all too well, but it was much more comfortable to keep her head in the sand and not confront the reasons it bothered her.

“I suppose,” she replied noncommittally. “Listen, I’ll be home at the end of the week,” she continued, changing the subject. “We can go shopping. Now that I work every day, I find I don’t have enough clothes to cover the whole week. When I was in school I could wear jeans and T-shirts.”

“Okay. I’ll go shopping with you, if Josh lets you come home so quickly. He may think you need more of a break, and I’d have to agree,” she added solemnly. “Taking care of your dad and working every day took its toll on you.”

“I figure that if you agree to take a job, it’s your responsibility,” she reminded her friend. “I like working. Dad had private nurses, thanks to Josh. He never paid much attention to me, even when he was so sick.”

“He never paid much attention to you, period,” Mirri said coldly. “Just like my father. If I’d had somebody to take care of me when I was in my teens, maybe I wouldn’t be the emotional wreck I am now. He turned me loose. He never cared that I went out at night alone, and I was too stupid to know the danger.” She paused, her voice thin with memories as they came back to haunt her. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered reverently, gripping the telephone cord, “what I’d have been spared if my mother hadn’t died. My life changed when your father sent you to my grammar school instead of a private school.”

“We had each other, Mirri,” Amanda said with a smile. “Even after I had to transfer to that private high school. Even when your worst nightmare came true.”

“If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have killed myself that night,” Mirri said soberly. She was silent for a minute, remembering the details of that horrible night. Too often they played through her mind. But Amanda was the only one she dared tell. “You took me home with you because Dad was out of town. I cried all night long after we got back from the hospital, and you sat up with me.”

“You should have accepted the counseling they offered,” Amanda ventured.

“Talk about...that...to a bunch of strangers?” Mirri asked, incredulous. “It’s bad enough to have Nelson Stuart looking at me as if he thinks I stepped out of a brothel. He thinks I’m one bad lady.”

“You might tell him that vivacious persona is a mask.”

“Are you nuts?!” Mirri burst out. “Anyway, Mr. Stuart’s opinion of me and fifty cents might buy me a cup of coffee.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“And getting worse. Look, I’ve got to run. You take care of yourself.”

“You, too. See you soon.”

As Mirri hung up, she became aware of dark eyes staring at her, glaring at her. She was wearing a colorful skirt with a red peasant blouse—wild colors that suited her and disguised the shamed severity of her soul. Her long red hair fell in natural waves to her shoulders, and her blue eyes were big and thick-lashed in a face dominated by pale skin and freckles.

“Using the company phone on company time, Miss Walsh?” he asked without smiling.

“It’s my coffee break, and I got called. I didn’t call anyone.” She propped her chin on her hands, supported by her elbows on the desk, and gave him a big-eyed stare. “May I ask you something, Mr. Stuart?”

One dark eye narrowed. “What?”

“Is that your real face, or one you glue on every morning?”

The glare got worse.

“It’s just that you never smile, sir,” she said with an irrepressible grin. “I only wondered if your face would crack if you tried.”

“Proper use of the telephone goes with your responsibilities,” he told her stiffly. “No personal calls on company time, whether or not you initiate them.”

“I still have—” she checked her watch “—two more minutes on my coffee break. And if you aren’t certain that I didn’t initiate the call, you can always check,” she offered. “After all, you whiz-bang FBI guys can get access to telephone company records, right?”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “In addition, I would appreciate it if you could dress in an appropriate manner around this predominantly masculine office.”

She looked at herself, from her huge dangly gold circle earrings to her jangly gold bracelets. “You mean, you’d like me to go naked?! Mr. Stuart!”

She raised her voice just as two of the younger agents came in the door and quickly averted their faces. They disappeared into another office with muffled hysteria while Mr. Stuart’s bruised dignity healed itself.

“On the contrary, Miss Walsh,” he said through his teeth, “having you naked in the office would be much less of a distraction than having you dress like a kaleidoscope!”

He turned and walked into his office, closing the door with a subdued thump.

Mirri watched the door for a minute. Then she licked the point of her index finger and, with a grin, made a mark in the air.