by Liz Fielding
Maddy gave an imperceptible shrug and lifted her chin just a touch. ‘I don’t seem to have much choice. Zoë is expecting me.’ If she had hoped to prod him a little with this, she signally failed.
‘She didn’t have much choice either, the way I heard it. After all, you mustn’t be deprived of your holiday.’
‘I thought you were in a hurry,’ Maddy snapped crossly. Then, as she made a move to board the seaplane, it rose and fell slightly against the dock on the swell of the tide, and she hesitated.
‘Afraid of getting your feet wet?’ he asked.
She threw him her most withering glance, but he didn’t wither. On the contrary, he put two hands about her waist, lifted her from the jetty and swung her across the gap, holding her for just long enough over the space where the ocean sucked against the jetty to let her know that he was seriously considering whether to dump her in it. A little gasp escaped her lips at such brazen intimidation and, apparently satisfied that he had made his point, his mouth twisted momentarily into a tormenting little smile. Then he placed her very gently on the seat of the plane.
‘I....’
Griff raised a dark brow with speaking insolence at her inability to say precisely what was on her mind. ‘Yes?’ he prompted.
But Maddy, burningly conscious of the pressure of his fingers through the fine silk of her biscuit-coloured camisole, the invasion of the broad pads of his thumbs beneath the flare of her ribs, was finally lost for words.
Worse, she was blushing for the second time in less than five minutes.
Her immune system was normally alert to all the danger signals, but this man had somehow slipped under her defences while she’d been reeling from her scene with Rupert and she was very much afraid that he knew it. She had to disabuse him of the fact, and quickly.
‘One hand would have done,’ she said. It was meant as a rebuke but her voice was oddly breathy and it came out all wrong.
The lines that bracketed his mouth deepened and he very nearly smiled. ‘Valuable cargo must be treated with care,’ he replied.
‘Valuable cargo?’
‘Zoë told me that you are an heiress to a considerable fortune.’
Maddy felt a little chill invade her soul. ‘Is that all she had to say?’
‘She’s been going on all week about how charming you are which is odd, because she’s usually so discerning.’
‘You are unbelievably rude,’ she said, as crushingly as she knew how.
‘Anytime, Miss Osborne,’ he replied with grave formality, totally uncrushed. But at least he had removed his hands and she could breathe again.
‘Now, would it be too much trouble for you to move over? You’re sitting in my seat. Unless, of course,’ he added, with a wry twist of his mouth, ‘you would prefer to fly yourself to St. Vincent Island?’
About to tell him that she was perfectly capable of doing just that to wipe that mocking smile right off his face, she decided that she’d already said far too much and scrambled across the tiny cockpit into the passenger seat.
Besides, it wasn’t strictly true. She had a pilot’s licence and quite a few hours in her log book but she’d never flown a seaplane. If the pilot had been anyone else she would have asked if she could take the controls for a while, but she wasn’t about to ask Griff-will-do for any favours. Which was probably just as well, because she was pretty sure that he wasn’t in the mood to grant her any.
Nevertheless, she watched with the fascination of the newly addicted, following every movement as he ran through his pre-flight checks, wound up the engine and then called St. Vincent control for permission to take off.
The crackling voice on the radio gave him a heading and height and he threw her a glance to check that she had fastened her seat belt before casting off and closing the cockpit door. The snap of the lock made her jump. It had an almost ominous finality about it, as if the two of them were cast adrift from the rest of the world.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She gave herself a firm mental shake and looked out of the window, determined not to say another word until they reached St, Vincent.
Griff taxied out into the deserted bay, waiting a moment for clearance. Then he opened the throttle and, unable to help herself, she turned to watch, holding her breath as the plane surged forward under his steady hand and skimmed over the clear turquoise water for dizzy, breathless moments. Muscles flexed on strong, tanned forearms as he pulled back on the control column, their strength defined by the fine line of hairs, once presumably as dark as the untamed mop that decorated his well-shaped head but now turned to dark gold from constant exposure to the sun.
Her back was momentarily pressed hard against the seat and then quite suddenly they were airborne, free, and Maddy gave a little sigh of pure pleasure that drew a brief, enquiring glance from the pilot. She didn’t respond, choosing to concentrate on the unfamiliar view of a string of islands that disappeared into the hazy distance, each with its own protective circle of reef.
The plane banked steeply, offering a breathtaking view of the exquisite colours of the bay beneath them, every shade of turquoise, then jade and bright emerald-green until, beyond the white ruffle that betrayed the hidden reef, the water turned to deepest sapphire. As they gained height a yacht, brilliant white against the sparkling blue depths of the ocean, shrank to the size of a child’s plaything and Maddy had a brief glimpse of the wreck of the Antilles which years before had run onto the reef between Mustique and a nearby island and broken its back. Then there was nothing but a cloudless blue sky.
Maddy watched intently as Griff made the small adjustments for a straight and level flight, envying the sure, confident touch of his long, sun-darkened fingers on the controls, recognising a man in his element. As if sensing that he was being watched, he turned, and for a brief second their eyes, the tawny and the green, clashed.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said abruptly.
‘Do what?’ She knew instantly that even thinking the question had been a mistake. Asking it out loud had been madness.
‘Flirt when you don’t mean it. Flash out signals like a firefly on heat. I realise there is a type of woman who can’t resist the challenge but—’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Maddy gasped.
‘I said—’
‘No,’ she said quickly, with a tiny gesture of dismissal. ‘I heard what you said; there’s no need to repeat it.’ She snapped her head round to stare straight ahead at the achingly blue sky, painfully aware that once more she had flushed hatefully beneath the beginnings of a tan, but this time she refused to let it go. ‘You’re quite wrong, you know. I wasn’t trying to flirt with you.’ Damn. Why on earth had she said that? Far better to have ignored it. St. Vincent wasn’t far. Much better to keep her silence. ‘I was just interested in the controls.’ No! No! She hadn’t meant to say that! It was as if her tongue had a life of its own.
‘The controls?’ Griff gave a short laugh. ‘Of course you were, Miss Maddy Osborne.’ Before she knew what was happening he had grasped her dismissive hand and laid it over his on the control column, holding it captive, small and white between his own strong, workmanlike ones. ‘Like this?’ he asked, his decisive mouth far too close for comfort.
‘No!’ Maddy was desperate to pull free from the hateful, exhilarating touch of his hands but her brain was ignoring the urgent signals for help.
‘Will you show me how you do that?’ he mocked, his voice slipping easily into a fluttering, breathy impersonation of her own, so good that if she hadn’t been thrown totally off balance by the swiftness of his attack, by the unexpected surge of warmth as the palm of his hand was pressed against her knuckles, she might just have found it funny. ‘Oh, Griff, aren’t you strong!’
His voice wavered in a perfect imitation of the kind of woman she had heard a dozen times during the past couple of weeks, the kind of woman who hung around the muscular young men who worked around the hotel and on the beaches. The kind of woman he preyed upon? If
so, why wasn’t he encouraging her instead of mocking her? Could it really be true that he was ready to fleece Zoë?
If that was the case Griff wouldn’t want Maddy telling her godmother that he had made a pass at her, would he?
He made no move to hold her as she snatched her hand away, seething with indignation. ‘Maybe half the women in Mustique have thrown themselves at you, Mr Griff-Will-Do,’ she told him with considerable force, ‘but, I can assure you, you are perfectly safe from me.’
‘I’d be perfectly safe from you if you stripped naked and danced the limbo. I don’t like heartless girls who tease.’ His green eyes, hard as the heart of an emerald, flickered carelessly over her, apparently unmoved by her outburst. ‘Judging by the performance I witnessed yesterday, you’re obviously a past master. Or should I say mistress?’
‘Mistress?’ Maddy, who prided herself on her ability to take most things in her stride, felt a flutter of confusion ripple the smooth surface of her life. Disturbed, unsettled by the man’s insolent manner, she lashed back, ‘Hardly that. It was doubtless his desperation to get into my bed that drove Rupert into offering marriage,’ she responded vigorously, without pausing to consider the wisdom of such a statement.
‘There’s no need to explain; the picture came over loud and clear.’ His voice was barbed. ‘If you can drive a man that far you must have a rare gift for the game.’
‘It’s not a game,’ she said stiffly, fervently wishing that she had kept to her plan to ignore him. But it was impossible to ignore him in the tiny confines of the aircraft. He reached across the small space between them to graze her mouth with the edge of his thumb and she gave a shuddering little gasp.
‘Your lips drip ice. Miss Osborne, but your eyes are on fire. A dangerous combination.’ He tucked his thumb beneath her chin and forced it up so that she was looking straight up into those insolent green eyes. ‘One day you’ll meet someone who won’t take no for an answer.’
‘You?’ She had intended cold mockery, derision. The word came out as a breathy little gasp, an invitation.
‘Would you like to find out?’
He didn’t wait for her answer but reached for the dark glasses perched on the ledge above the instrument panel and slipped them on.
Following his example, she slipped on her own sunglasses and pushed them firmly up her nose, signalling that as far as she was concerned the conversation was at an end. It should never have started. She wasn’t so easy to provoke under the normal course of events, but this man had rattled her from the first moment she’d set eyes on him.
Tease indeed!
As if Rupert Hartnoll’s proposal had been welcome. His arrival on the island aboard a friend’s yacht had been a complete surprise but her father, misreading her pleasure at seeing him as something more, had issued an invitation to stay without consulting her.
Maddy glanced at Griff from behind the relative safety of the darkened lenses. She wasn’t in the least surprised that he appealed to women like Zoë with too much money and nothing to keep them occupied. He had the kind of body any woman would find irresistible and, if not precisely handsome, his strongly moulded face and the well-defined curve of his mouth suggested a sensuality...
Confused at the turn her thoughts were taking, Maddy tightened her lips. Handsome is as handsome does, she reminded herself very firmly, then threw an exasperated glance at the cockpit ceiling. Oh, Zoë, she thought, why couldn’t you take up knitting and grow old gracefully?
Griff reached up for the radio, speaking to traffic control to inform them that he was approaching Paradise Island.
‘See you in a couple of weeks, Griff. Have a good holiday,’ the voice crackled back before signing off. He hooked the radio back up. Maddy frowned, surprised that he hadn’t immediately contacted the next control area. But she had learned to fly in the busy airspace near London. Out here everything was more — relaxed.
‘You’re going on holiday?’ she demanded. The words were out before she could recall them. She had assumed that he would be working, that she would at least have some time alone with Zoë to find out what was going on. But if he was going to be there all the time... He was staring at her. ‘The air traffic controller said...’ she began, then coloured. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘A couple of weeks fishing, if you’ve no objection,’ he said abruptly. He didn’t elaborate and she left it. It didn’t matter to her what he planned to do, and since she knew Zoë loathed fishing they would at least have some time alone to talk.
She glanced out of the cockpit. They had dropped height considerably. Below them was a small island which, from the air seemed deserted. Not a sign of life, no craft to mar the perfection of a narrow horseshoe inlet that ran up to a small, sheltered beach fringed with tumbled rocks. No buildings to spoil the perfect natural mop of lush greenery that decorated the hilltop centre although she knew that could be deceptive. Few islands were totally uninhabited and the windward side might be choc-a-bloc with holidaymakers, although it seemed unlikely.
‘Is that Paradise Island?’ she asked.
‘Like to have a closer look?’ It wasn’t a polite invitation and she turned at the sudden tenseness in his voice. Then the engine gave a little splutter and the propeller ceased to spin. Maddy watched, fascinated, as Griff switched off the engine, pushed in the throttle, turned off the fuel — classic textbook procedure prior to an emergency landing...’Shoes, glasses, false teeth,’ he snapped urgently. ‘Open your door. Now!’
Her eyes saw what was happening but her brain wasn’t taking any calls.
‘I haven’t got false—’ Then the sudden realisation that the engine had cut out, that the crackling chatter from the radio had abruptly ceased and that the only sound was the air rushing past the fuselage broke through the disbelief and she reacted. She kicked off her shoes, flung off her glasses, flipped the door lock before burying her head in her lap.
CHAPTER TWO
MADDY, her head buried in her lap, waited for the impact and prayed. As they hit the water, there was a jolt that rattled her teeth and threw her against the restraints. She kept her hands tight about her head as they bounced across the smooth water of the inlet, biting down hard to stop a scream escaping. She was so tense that she didn’t realise the plane had finally come to a halt until there was a touch on her shoulder.
‘You can come out now, Miss Osborne.’
She lifted her head a little, hardly able to believe that they were riding on the glassy smooth water of the inlet. She knew enough to understand the skill it had taken to glide the little seaplane to a safe landing and she cleared her throat to tell him so. But when she tried to speak nothing came out. She cleared her throat again.
‘Well, any landing you can walk away from...’ she said, somewhat flippantly, only to be surprised by the unexpected shake in her voice.
‘In this case, swim away from.’ They had come to a standstill in the middle of the bay. ‘Or rather, paddle away from. He glanced at her. ‘At least you didn’t have hysterics, for which small mercy I suppose I should be grateful.’
‘I never have hysterics,’ she said, but what had started as a rebuke degenerated into a nervous giggle that sounded stupidly loud in the utter silence of the inlet. ‘Would now be a good time to start?’
‘Why don’t you save it until we reach dry land?’ he suggested. ‘Then you can really let yourself go.’
Griff opened the cockpit door on his side and climbed down onto the float, rocking the machine precariously. Maddy finally succumbed to a little scream, terrified that the plane would tip over and sink. She rapidly followed suit, slipping precariously as her legs buckled beneath her, unexpectedly all rubber. She clung briefly to one of the wing struts, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering as, somewhat belatedly, she began to shake with the shocking realisation of just how close to catastrophe they had come.’
Griff, however, was sitting astride the other float apparently quite unconcerned. Perhaps emergency landings were a regular
occurrence for him and he took them in his stride. He turned and, seeing her clinging to the strut for dear life, raised a sardonic brow.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘N-nothing.’ It was suddenly quite ridiculously important not to appear a shivering wimp. ‘I... I’m just not dressed for a swim, that’s all.’
He turned and looked at her, a slight frown creasing his forehead. Then he shrugged. ‘Strip off if you don’t want your clothes to get wet,’ he invited somewhat astringently. ‘It won’t bother me.’
She glared at him. ‘I remember. You’re impervious. Well., thanks all the same,’ she replied with resolution, ‘but I’m sure I’ll manage. I’m not about to do a limbo dance, either.’ His eyebrows rose a touch and too late she remembered that, as her father had suggested, she was supposed to be the epitome of helplessness. ‘Just in case you were wondering,’ she added, and turned quickly away to stare down into water so clear that she could see the ripples of sand on the bottom. But that gave no indication of the likely depth — it could just as easily have been five feet as fifty. The beach was a couple of hundred yards away. Rather more than a paddle.
She lowered herself into the sea. As she’d suspected, it was too deep to stand. She hung onto the float, then she pushed off and headed towards the island, the desire for solid land, to feel the soft white sand of the beach beneath her feet suddenly quite overwhelmingly strong as her crisp, incisive crawl drove her through the water.
‘Where are you going, Miss Osborne?’
Griff’s voice carried clearly across the surface of the sea and, surprised, she stopped and turned, treading water. Where on earth did he think she was going? He was still sitting astride the float, his strong, tanned thighs lapped by the wavelets.
‘Sightseeing,’ she snapped, and spluttered as the sea-water lapped into her mouth. ‘Where do you think?’
