The Maddening Model (Hazards, Inc.)

by Suzanne Simms

  She picked up a Kalaga tapestry vest from the same table. “The workmanship is extraordinary.” Looking up at Simon, she said, “Could you ask this woman how many vests she can make in say—” she made an airy gesture with her hand “—a month?”

  Simon spoke with the hill tribe woman for several minutes. Then he gave Sunday an answer of sorts. “The woman is called Ikat. Her entire village is involved in the production of the Kalaga vests and caps. She wishes to know how many you want.”

  Sunday smiled and nodded. “Please tell Ikat that I will return to discuss business with her.”

  The scenario was repeated several more times as they moved through the marketplace. Near the end of the bustling street, they came upon a display of silk cloth in bright, festive shades of pink, red and purple.

  “Your trademark colors,” Simon observed.

  There were more bolts of material in green, brown and saffron. Sunday’s head was swirling with images of what she could do with the fine Thai silk. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for,” she confided to him with barely suppressed excitement. “I’m going to create a whole collection around the things I’ve seen tonight.” She clasped his arm. “Oh, Simon, this is everything I’d hoped it would be and more.”

  He brought his face closer. “It’s only the beginning.”

  It was then that Sunday happened to look past him to where a young couple were browsing at a booth on the far side of the bazaar. She couldn’t see their features clearly, but there was something vaguely familiar about the pair. For a moment, she even wondered if they could be the Grimwades. That wasn’t possible, of course. The Australian couple had flown back to Bangkok two days ago.

  Still...

  Sunday was about to mention the incident to Simon, when she felt the first raindrop. Then another and another. Umbrellas seemed to magically appear from one end of the marketplace to the other. Within a minute or two, it began to rain in earnest.

  “Let’s find some shelter,” Simon suggested, taking her by the elbow. “Here,” he said, drawing her into the shadows of a nearby doorway.

  “Does anybody live here?” she said, peering in the window of the small hut behind them.

  “Nope. It’s deserted,” he said.

  His eyes never left hers. His breath was fresh and sweet, yet masculine, with a hint of the strong coffee they’d drunk after dinner; it stirred the tendrils around her cheeks. His hands were on either side of her head as he backed her up against the wall of the primitive building.

  “Simon.” The voice didn’t sound like hers.

  “Sunday.” His was different, somehow, as well. Husky. Guttural. Intense.

  She could hear the rat-a-tat-tat of rain on the tin roof overhead. She could smell the scented blossoms on the wind, and the moisture in the air and the mountain dust. Over Simon’s left shoulder, she could make out the glow of lantern light in the distance.

  “We’re a million miles from home,” she murmured.

  “More like eight or nine thousand, actually,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  He was making it impossible for her to keep her train of thought. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  Simon moved his head. “Maybe it isn’t.”

  She pushed at his chest; it was an ineffectual, halfhearted gesture at best. “Then why are we—?”

  He eliminated the space between them. “Because we have to. I’ve known that since the afternoon Ho and his gang stopped us on the road to Lamphun.” A heartbeat, then two. “So have you.”

  “Yes.” The shadows closed around them. “I feel as if things are about to change.”

  “They are.”

  “Change can be frightening,” she admitted.

  “Change is inevitable.”

  Sunday tried to collect her wits. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Simon looked down at her. “I know I’m right.”

  Held close to him as she was, she found his eyes unavoidable. “I don’t look up to many men.”

  The corners of his beautiful mouth curved. “Literally or figuratively?”

  Sunday swallowed. “Both.”

  Quick fingers closed on her wrist. Simon raised her hand to his mouth. Then he brushed his lips back and forth across the sensitive skin at the base of her thumb. “I’m going to kiss you.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  His eyes darkened. “Are you going to kiss me?”

  Was she? Her heart was racing. “Yes.”

  The last inch between them disappeared.

  Kissing Simon Hazard was a paradox. He was exactly what she’d expected, and he was far more than she’d bargained for. He was only several inches taller than she, but he was broad-shouldered, solid, muscular. There were few men who made Sunday feel small, dainty, petite, protected, when she stood beside them. Simon, it turned out, was one of them.

  Then there was the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him and her reaction to him. She had been merely curious in the beginning, she told herself. But curiosity soon led to something else, and that something else was passion.

  What did she know of passion?

  She had a passion for strawberry ice cream, for that twilight time between evening and full-blown night, for the colors pink, red and purple. She was passionate about music, about good food, about the spring of the year, about the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, Walt Whitman.

  But what did she know of passion between a man and a woman?

  Very little. Her experience with the opposite sex was limited to a few groping kisses, an awkward caress or two, a bungling young man on a hot summer night, hurried, embarrassed, self-conscious.

  Simon’s kiss, Simon’s caress—resolute, manly, impassioned—was a world away from that other time, that other place. His mouth was all that a man’s mouth should be. His lips were soft, without being weak or insipid. His taste was intoxicating, slightly mysterious, definitely addictive. His touch was confident without being cocky. He wasn’t sure of her; he was simply sure of himself, of how he felt, of what he wanted.

  And it was abundantly clear from the way he kissed her, the way he caressed her, the way he used his body to gently pin her against the wall that what Simon Hazard wanted was her!

  * * *

  He’d made a mistake.

  A big mistake.

  A huge mistake.

  He’d known for nearly three days that he was going to kiss Sunday Harrington. The anticipation had been growing inside him since the encounter with the bandits on the road to Lamphun.

  He was no fool, Simon reminded himself. He knew sexual excitement and the threat of physical violence were sometimes flip sides of the same coin. It was one reason he hadn’t acted on the impulse to kiss Sunday until now. He’d wanted to make sure that he knew what he was doing, that he was in control of the situation, that things didn’t get out of hand.

  Things were out of hand.

  They’d made a mad dash to take cover from the rain. He’d bent toward Sunday to say something, promptly forgotten whatever it was he’d intended to say, and the next thing he knew, he was kissing her. Not once. Not twice. But again and again until both of them were breathing heavily, their lungs starved for oxygen, their hearts pounding.

  It was crazy.

  “This is crazy,” he muttered against her mouth.

  Sunday’s arms snaked their way around his waist. “Crazy,” she echoed.

  “Insane,” he added as he nuzzled her neck.

  “Insane,” she agreed.

  “We’re not a couple of kids.” Simon took her face in his hands. “We’re two mature and consenting adults.”

  Sunday mumbled something unintelligible.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he confessed, catching her by the shoulders and giving her a tiny shake.

  “Neither have I.”

  “As a grown man, I mean,” he revised, stumbling over his own words, his own thoughts.

 
Simon slipped his hands down her arms and across her rib cage, then he covered her breasts. There was an immediate reaction from both of them. Her nipples protruded into his palms, grazing his skin, teasing and tickling him, making his hands itch to do so much more than caress her through the material of her dress and bra.

  His own body reacted, as well. He could feel his flesh pressing against the zipper of his jeans, hard and rigid. About to explode, he was on the verge of embarrassing himself.

  There was a sharp intake of air. At first, Simon thought it was his own. Then he realized it was Sunday’s. She knew. How could she not know? His hips were grinding against hers.

  “I was wrong,” he growled, putting breathing room between them.

  “About what?”

  “My self-control.” Hell, he was acting like someone half his age. “This was a mistake.”

  She reached up and traced the hard line of his jaw. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  He felt her pause for a fraction of a second before she said, “Because I liked it.”

  “Liked it?”

  “I loved it,” she admitted in a husky voice.

  It wasn’t meant to be seductive. It wasn’t meant to be a come-on. The woman didn’t have a flirtatious bone in her body.

  “You shouldn’t say that to me, Sunday,” he warned her.

  She held herself very still. Huge green eyes stared at him warily. “Why not?”

  Simon almost blurted out the truth: because he wanted to take her in his arms again, because he wanted to strip every last article of clothing from their bodies and stretch out on the soft, wet grass and make love all night long. Because he wanted, needed, to scratch this erotic itch. Because he wanted to bury himself so deeply inside her that neither of them would know where he ended and she began.

  “Because I want you,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She frowned. “Want me?”

  He swore softly, and after a slight hesitation said, “I want to make love to you.”

  Her mouth formed an O. “I—I’m sorry, Simon,” she stammered. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t understand.”

  Who did think at a time like this? Who could? The brain shut down and instinct took over.

  “I know I must seem very naive to you,” Sunday began, concentrating on his chin.

  She did.

  Absentmindedly, she reached out and buttoned his shirt where it had come undone. “I haven’t had a great deal of experience at this kind of thing.”

  He’d guessed as much.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said frankly, “I’ve lived pretty much like a...”

  “Nun?” he supplied.

  Simon didn’t actually hear Sunday say yes, but he sensed it.

  “If it’s any comfort to you,” he said, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear, “I’ve been living for some time as a—”

  “Monk?”

  “Yeah. I guess that explains it,” he proposed, with a crooked smile.

  She stared at him, unblinking. “Explains what?”

  “Our reaction—or maybe I should say our over-reaction—to each other.”

  She heaved a sigh. “It was a little intense.”

  “It quickly got out of control.”

  “We’ll know better next time,” she said.

  If they were smart, if he was smart, there wouldn’t be a next time.

  Simon looked at the star-studded sky and held out his hand, palm up. “It’s stopped raining.”

  Sunday stepped from the doorway of the hut. “Yes. It has.”

  “Perhaps we should go back to the night bazaar and see to your business,” he suggested.

  “Perhaps we should,” she agreed, patting her hair and smoothing the front of her red dress.

  Simon knew he had to do something, say something to relieve the tension between them. “I was right about one thing,” he said as they made their way around the mud puddles that had appeared in the street.

  “What’s that?”

  He slipped an arm around Sunday’s shoulders and flashed her a devilish grin. “You’re worth a hell of a lot more than three pigs.”

  Nine

  “A map and a riddle, what do you think the man meant?” Sunday asked as she studied the piece of paper she had paid handsomely for by Thai standards. It was early the next morning, the sun was on the horizon and they were several hours into the arduous eight-hour drive from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son.

  Simon kept his eyes on the tortuous mountain road. “I guess just that—it’s a map and it’s a riddle.”

  Sunday chewed on her lower lip and thought out loud. “I wonder what this symbol represents.”

  “Describe it to me,” he suggested.

  “It’s a stylized circle with large scalloped edges. Inside the circle are four sets of lines that form four identical shapes. The shapes are similar to hearts. Oh, and each line ends in a fancy curlicue.”

  “A fancy curlicue?”

  “How would you describe it?” she said, holding the map up just within his field of vision.

  Simon took his eyes off the winding highway for a fraction of a second. “Hmong,” he announced.

  “Hmong?”

  “Lisu, Hmong, Karen, Lahu, Muser, Akha—they’re all hill tribes, each with its own language, its own customs, its own distinctive set of symbols. I won’t say writing because some, like the Akha, have no written language.”

  “Tell me more about this Hmong symbol,” she urged.

  “It is called a Pa Ndau, which means a ‘cloth flower,’ and according to Hmong thinking, it attracts good spirits. But the design isn’t a bunch of hearts. It’s an elephant’s footprint.

  “The elephant being the symbol for luck and good fortune in this part of Asia,” she said.

  “You remembered.”

  “I remembered.”

  “The other symbol I caught a glimpse of is either Akha or Lisu. The geometric triangles are supposed to be the mountains that keep good spirits from fleeing.”

  “So we have an elephant footprint and a mountain range,” she concluded.

  “We have more than that,” he reminded her. “There is the river Pai, as I mentioned that first day outside the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. The mountains may very well correspond to the mountains on a regular map, and the local tribespeople can tell you where the traditional elephant trails are.”

  Sunday tried to be realistic, but her heart gave a leap. “You mean, we might actually be able to pinpoint the location of the Hidden Buddha?”

  “Within ten or fifteen kilometers,” he cautioned. “Assuming the map isn’t a fake and assuming the Hidden Buddha is sitting right out in the open.”

  “Oh.” Sunday couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “Surely you knew it was a long shot.”

  “Of course I knew it was a long shot.”

  So much in life was a long shot, Sunday reflected as she turned her head and gazed out the side window of the Range Rover. Her career as a fashion model. Her success as a designer. Even this trip to Thailand. Most people never attempted in a lifetime half of what she had accomplished by the age of thirty.

  Still, something was missing.

  For years, she’d told herself that it was something she didn’t want, didn’t miss—at least not very often—and didn’t need. Now she wasn’t so certain.

  Passion. Commitment. Desire. Dedication. Determination. She had taken the full gamut of her emotions and poured them into her career, her pursuit of an education, her business. There had been very little—if anything—left over to give to a personal relationship.

  Men. They came in all shapes and sizes, some with intelligence and some without. Some men were kind, sensitive, artistic. Some were overloaded with testosterone and a competitive spirit. Some were workaholics. Some were out to build a name for themselves. Some thought they were God’s gift to women. What she had never found, Sunday realized, was a man, the man, of her dreams.
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br />   What kind of man would he be?

  A man of integrity. A man of honor and intelligence and common sense. He would be mature, self-reliant, self-confident—without being egotistical, of course. He would be successful. He would possess a keen wit and a flair for stimulating conversation.

  The man of her dreams would be monogamous. He would love her, desire her, adore her, even worship the ground upon which she walked. He would excite her, make her heart beat faster, send sensual chills down her spine with his kiss, his caress.

  Did such a man exist? Was there a Mr. Right somewhere for her? Or was she too much of an idealist? Too much of a romantic at heart? Had she set her sights too high? Could she, would she, ever find a man, the man for her?

  “Improbable, but not impossible,” stated Simon.

  Sunday gave her head a shake; she had lost all track of time. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I said, it’s improbable but not impossible.”

  She sat up a little straighter and stretched her legs out in front of her. “What is?”

  “Finding the Hidden Buddha of the Heavenly Mist, of course.”

  “You were talking about the Buddha?”

  An expression of puzzlement crossed his face. “What were you talking about?”

  “The Buddha, of course,” she said lightly as she opened her handbag and took out her sunglasses.

  * * *

  Sunday wasn’t telling him the truth.

  He’d been around enough wheeler-dealers and high-powered CEOs in his time to know when someone was lying. Of course, she was entitled to her privacy. She didn’t have to share her every thought with him.

  It was just that after last night, Simon admitted to himself, he was a little skittish. He only hoped he hadn’t scared her off.

  Sunday had claimed that she liked his kisses, his caresses. Loved them, in fact. But she wouldn’t be the first woman to get cold feet in the harsh light of day.

  Last night had been a sensory overload of exotic sights and sounds. A man and a woman, already attracted to each other, thousands of miles from home, found themselves alone in the shadows and the warm, tropical rain. Ending up in each other’s arms hadn’t exactly been a long shot.