The Maddening Model (Hazards, Inc.)

by Suzanne Simms

  “In the end, it was you who saved the day,” she noted.

  “It was stupid, Sunday,” Simon stated, berating himself. “I could easily have gotten us both killed. These people are playing for keeps, and I pretended it was all a glorious adventure, part of the services provided by your hired tour guide.”

  “You’re being awfully hard on yourself.” She reached out and patted his arm. “After all, as you said, you aren’t a secret agent or a spy.”

  They walked for a time without speaking. Sunday looked up at the stars overhead and the moon on the rise. There were some kind of flowers in bloom along the street; their scent was sweet and poignant. “What will happen to the others now?” she asked.

  “The Colonel and the Grimwades will be sent back to England to stand trial. Unless they strike a bargain. The British government doesn’t like to be embarrassed. They may decide it’s better to keep the scandal out of the newspapers.”

  “I noticed that Sister Agatha Anne never bothered to explain herself to the local authorities. She kept on her habit and the distinctive headpiece the whole while we were at the police station. It wouldn’t surprise me if the people here still believe she’s a nun,” Sunday said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, either.”

  “It does explain Mother Superior’s attitude concerning Sister Agatha Anne that first day in Bangkok.”

  “Yes, it does.” He looked at her askance. “Are you sure you don’t mind about the rubies? They would have looked stunning on you with your red hair.”

  Sunday shook her head and kicked at a pebble in the street. “The rubies belong exactly where they are—with the Thai authorities. With any luck, some of the money will be used to help the hill-tribe people.”

  “With any luck.”

  “I suppose the archaeologists will have a field day with the Hidden Buddha of the Heavenly Mist.”

  “I suppose they will.”

  “The waterfall, the pristine pond, the green grass, the ancient Buddhist temple—none of it will ever be the same, will it?”

  “Nope.”

  “It will never be just ours again.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She was trembling with emotion. “What was it you told me about change?”

  There was a sardonic tone to Simon’s voice. “I said change was inevitable.”

  “Yes, you did.” She kicked at another stone. “And you were right. It is inevitable.”

  “That doesn’t mean we always have to like it,” he told her.

  They reached the Holiday Inn, and Simon escorted her to the door of her room. Sunday put the key in the lock and turned. The door opened. She turned to face him. There was an awkward silence between them.

  “It’s been quite a day. You must be exhausted,” he said.

  “It has been and I am.”

  He concentrated on his hands. “Besides, there’s always tomorrow.”

  Sunday glanced down at the watch on her wrist. “It is tomorrow.”

  He looked up and frowned. “What?”

  “It’s after midnight. It is tomorrow.”

  “You’d better get some sleep. The return trip to Bangkok is a long one.”

  “Good night, Simon,” she called out softly, but he had already closed the door to his room.

  Sunday shut and locked her door. She turned with a sigh and looked over the hotel room. There was a bed, a dresser, a closet and what she hoped and prayed was a bathroom with modern plumbing.

  Upon closer examination, she found the bathroom was small, compact and clean. It also had a second door. A door that appeared to connect with the room next door.

  Simon’s room was next door.

  Sunday took hold of the doorknob and turned. It was unlocked.

  She knocked. Once. Twice. Three times. Softly, but loud enough to be heard.

  “Come in!” a familiar voice called out.

  Sunday opened the second bathroom door and walked directly into Simon’s hotel room. It was identical to her own.

  “This is your room,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “We share a bathroom.”

  “I know.”

  “Our rooms are essentially connecting rooms.”

  “Essentially.”

  Sunday planted her hands on her hips. “A fact that you failed to mention to me.”

  “I didn’t know until thirty seconds ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “As long as you’re here, do you have everything you need?” Simon inquired as if he were back in the guise of tour guide.

  Sunday burst out with it. “No, I don’t.”

  He ran his eyes over her. “What don’t you have that you need?”

  Sunday raised her eyes and looked intently into his. She opened her heart and mind. She put fear and cowardice and self-consciousness behind her. If she wanted a future, she was going to have to take a chance. She steeled herself. “No guts, no glory.”

  “What?”

  “No guts, no glory. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Life is an adventure. Grab it with both hands. Go for the gusto.”

  “I’ve heard it all before.”

  “I know. You said it all to me.”

  “What are you getting at, Sunday?”

  She wouldn’t start from the beginning. She’d start somewhere in the middle. “I came to Thailand looking for something.”

  “So did I.”

  “I found it.”

  “I did, too.”

  This was important. “What was it?” she asked.

  Simon combed his fingers through his hair. It was still long, still curly, still uncut, she noted. He gave her his answer. “What I found was an appreciation for being alive.”

  “I have never met a man who was more alive than you, Simon Hazard.”

  “What did you find, Sunday Harrington? Inspiration for your designer label? The silk material you’ve been wanting to work with? The kind of crafts you were searching for? The people to make them?”

  Sunday bit the inside of her mouth. “I found all of those things, of course.”

  He wagged his finger at her. “But? I can hear the but in your voice, sweetheart.”

  She took a deliberate step toward him. “But I found something far more important than all of that.”

  Simon didn’t move a muscle. He seemed glued to the spot. “You did?”

  She took another step. “I did.”

  They were toe-to-toe, leg-to-leg, hip-to-hip, chest-to-breast, chin-to-chin, eye-to-eye.

  Simon apparently had to know. “What was it you found?”

  “You,” she said with simplicity.

  He exhaled.

  Sunday reached up and dropped a kiss on the hard line of his jaw. “It doesn’t matter what you were before, or who you were before, Simon, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I think you can become my best friend, my lover, my husband and the father of my children.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.”

  * * *

  Sunday loved him.

  He wanted to shout it from the rooftops, the mountaintops, from the top of the tallest building. Unfortunately, the tallest building in Mae Hong Son was the two-story Holiday Inn where they were staying.

  “You love me.” He tried it on for size. It fit perfectly.

  Sunday said it again. “I love you.”

  Simon picked her up and swung her around the room. “You love me. You love me. You love me.” He savored the moment, the feeling, but he knew what came next. And there were one or two things he had to get off his chest first.

  He put Sunday down on her feet. He began to pace back and forth in front of her. He finally paused and suggested, “You might like to sit down,” he said, indicating the only chair in the room.

  She sat down.

  “There are a few things about me you don’t know,” he said in preamble.

  “That’s to be expected. We met less than two weeks ago,” she said reasonably.

 
; He was shocked. “Has it been less than two weeks?”

  “Twelve days, to be precise.”

  “But who’s counting?” they said in unison.

  Simon took the plunge. “I didn’t actually lie to you, Sunday. It was more a sin of omission.”

  Her face fell. “You’re married.”

  “Yes. No. Only to you.”

  She brightened. “Then nothing else matters.”

  He didn’t agree. “I don’t want to start our married life with anything between us.”

  Her face fell again. “You have children.”

  “I can guarantee that I don’t have any children.”

  Her face lit up. “Would you like to?”

  “Well, of course, I would like to have children one day, but we digress.” Sometimes the woman was infuriating, maddening, sometimes she drove him crazy.

  “It can’t be that bad,” she advised.

  “It’s not. It is. It depends on your point of view.”

  “Well?”

  “I’m not really a tour guide.”

  She started to get up.

  “Wait, there’s more.”

  She sat down again.

  Simon was frantically pacing back and forth now. “I don’t know any other way of saying it.” He stopped, turned and faced her. “I’m a wealthy man, sweetheart. I have my own business. Actually, I have my own businesses. I have an island. I have a penthouse. Hell, I was a bloody millionaire before I was thirty.”

  Sunday stood up, wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered in his ear, “So was I, darling.”

  “You were?”

  “Actually, I was a bloody millionaire before I was twenty-five—”

  “But who’s counting?” they said together.

  Simon took this most precious woman into his arms and gazed down into her eyes. “Have I told you that I love you?”

  “No.”

  “I love you.”

  * * *

  “There will be so much to see to,” Sunday began to fret some time later. It was nearly dawn and they had been making love all night long. “We don’t even know what city we’ll live in...what state...what country.”

  “Darling,” Simon murmured as he dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder and began to settle himself between her thighs, “a wise man once said something.”

  “What?”

  “Where you are isn’t as important as who you’re with.”

  “What wise man?” she whispered as he came to her.

  “This wise man, this very, very lucky man....”

  Epilogue

  Sunday Harrington and Simon Hazard were married many times: by Tget, the headman of the hill tribe in the north of Thailand, of course, then in a special ceremony at the Buddhist monastery where Simon had lived with the saffron-robed monks, and finally, with the blessings of Mother Superior, in the chapel at St. Agnes’s.

  Upon returning to the United States several months later, Sunday and Simon were joined in holy matrimony one last time in front of their families and friends. It was a joyous occasion.

  The Siam collection was a resounding success. With the blessing of the newlyweds, the profits were used to create jobs for the hill-tribe craftspeople of northern Thailand, and to establish a sanctuary for the last of the wild Asian elephants.

  And when the time came to select a name for his wife’s exclusive line of baby clothes and accessories for the nursery, Simon Hazard was the first to suggest Sunday’s Child.

  * * * * *

  A Word About Rubies

  The finest rubies come from Myanmar (Burma) and are more valuable per carat than emeralds, diamonds or sapphires. The enormous Timur ruby, a 352-carat stone known as the “Tribute to the World” was presented to Queen Victoria in 1851. It is carved with Arabic inscriptions giving dates and owners, and is part of the Royal jewels.

  Rubies are said to protect their owner from harm and adverse fortune, to preserve physical and mental health and to control amorous desires.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8660-3

  The Maddening Model

  Copyright © 1995 by Suzanne Simmons Guntrum

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