“Incredible’s the word, all right. So, you’re going to build this Shangri-la for him?”
“Well, not quite the way he’d envisioned it, no. I told him that he’d ruin the feeling of the land and the sea, if he went overboard on the luxuries.”
“No wet bars?”
Chase grinned. “And no suites, no golf courses, no tennis courts, and why put in a pool when Puget Sound’s outside your door?”
“That’s darned near a pool in the bathroom already,” Annie said, smiling. “Heaven knows, it’s too big for just one pers...” Color swept into her face. Her eyes met Chase’s, and she looked quickly away. “I’ll, uh, I’ll bet you had a tough time, convincing him.”
Chase shrugged. “Well, it took a while, yes.”
Silence filled the room. Finally Annie spoke.
“Chase?”
“Yes?”
“Well...well...” She took a deep breath. “Listen, I know it’ll be embarrassing for you to have to admit to your Mr. Tanaka that you and I ended up in the plane together by mistake, but you’re going to have to do it. Tell him anything you want. Whatever’s easiest for you. Lay it off on me, if you like. Say that I suddenly thought of something important back home.”
“Your fiancé,” Chase said politely. “I could say you forgot about him. How’s that sound?”
Annie refused to acknowledge the gauntlet, much less stoop to pick it up.
“I don’t care what you say. Just—just get me off this island, please.”
Chase nodded. She was right. They both needed to leave this place. “I’ll take care. of it.”
“You could tell him the same thing,” Annie blurted as he turned toward the door. He looked at her, and she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “You know,” she said, because it was too late to back down, “that you have to get back to your fiancée, too.”
Chase looked at his ex-wife. Sitting on the edge of the rocker, ankles crossed, hands locked together, with the rays of the late-afternoon sun streaking her hair with gold, she looked soft, sweet and undescribably vulnerable. He saw himself going to her, taking her in his arms, kissing her and telling her that she was the only woman he’d ever wanted, the only woman he’d ever loved.
“Chase?”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Uh, the thing is—we’ve both forgotten something.”
“I don’t think so,” Annie said, fighting against the tears that inexplicably threatened. “Believe me, Chase, we haven’t forgotten a thing.”
“No flight back until tomorrow, babe. No hotel rooms, either.”
“Oh.” Annie chewed on her lip. “Well, that’s okay. I’ll wait at the airport.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“It’s a fine idea.” Annie smiled brightly. “I’ve always liked airports. I can buy myself half a dozen magazines and a hot dog, curl up in a corner and—”
“Listen, we’ll stay right where we are. But we’ll start over. New ground rules. No talking about the past, or about us. Okay?”
“The past, and us, are the only things we’ve got,” Annie said quietly. “I don’t see how we can avoid talking about them.”
Chase looked at her for a long moment. Then he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I’ll go find the guy who brought us here. He can take us back to shore. And I’ll phone Tanaka and see if he can pull some strings to get you a room somewhere. Or I’ll stay with you at the airport, until you can get a flight out.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Look, we can argue about it later. Right now, let me just put the wheels in motion.”
“What’ll you tell him? Your Mr. Tanaka? About why we want to leave the island, I mean?”
His mouth twisted. “Don’t start worrying about how I handle business at this late date, Annie. It’s my problem, not yours.”
Chase strode from the room and slammed the door after him. Annie sat back in the rocker. She was shaking, and she felt like crying, which was stupid. It only proved how much pressure she’d been under, the last couple of days.
She took a deep breath, heel-and-toed the rocker into motion and settled in to wait for her liberation from this island, Chase, and a thousand unwanted memories.
* * *
“He’s gone.”
Annie blinked her eyes open and swung her legs to the floor.
“Who?” she said, in a hoarse voice. She frowned and rubbed her hands over her eyes. “Who’s gone?”
Chase leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. His face looked as if it had been chipped from granite.
“The guy who brought us here.”
Annie’s head was swimming. “I’m not—I’m not following you. The guy with the boat, you mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How can he be gone? Where could he have gone? He couldn’t have walked to...” Her breath caught at the expression on Chase’s face. “You mean, he took the boat?”
“You’ve got it.”
Annie stared at him. “We’re stuck here?”
“Right again.”
“Well-well, phone your Mr. Tanaka. Tell him—”
“Will you stop calling him that? He is not my Mr. Tanaka.” Chase glowered at her. “Anyway, I already tried to phone him.”
“And?”
“And,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “it’s not a regular phone they’ve got here, it’s a radio thing.”
“So?”
“So, it doesn’t seem to work.”
Annie bit her lip and fought down a rising tide of hysteria. “If this is your idea of some kind of joke, Chase...”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Chase smiled tightly. “The guy left a note, in the kitchen. It seems we’re trapped until tomorrow.”
“That’s impossible. Why would he strand us here?”
“I don’t know why. I don’t much care, either. All I know is that we’re going to have to make the best of things, until the jerk with the boat shows up tomorrow morning at eight.”
“At eight,” Annie repeated, through lips that felt numb. She looked at her watch. Sixteen hours to get through. Sixteen hours, alone with her ex-husband.
“Just get this through your head,” Chase said. Annie looked up. “This setup. This—this honeymoon hotel. I assure you, it wasn’t my idea.”
“I certainly hope not. Because if it was, you’re in for a heck of a disappoint—”
Annie gasped as Chase grabbed her shoulders and hauled her to her feet.
“Lady, I have taken all the insults I’m going to take! I promise you, I’m not so desperate for a woman to warm my bed that I’d go to all this trouble to arrange it.”
He was right, and she knew it. Her accusation had been dumb. He couldn’t have arranged this fiasco if he’d wanted to.
And he was right about all the rest, as well. Chase wouldn’t have to resort to subterfuge, to get a woman into his bed. He was—what had Deb called him, the day of the wedding? Hunky, that was it. He was hunky and he always had been, especially now that he was in his prime. Chase was a man who’d turn women’s heads without even trying.
No wonder she spotted his photo in the paper so often, with some smiling bimbo on his arm.
Except they weren’t bimbos. She might as well admit that, too, while she was going for the truth. She liked to tell herself they were, but the women in the photos with her ex-husband were invariably beautiful and elegant.
Like Janet Pendleton, who was going to become his wife.
Annie’s throat felt raspy. It was silly, but she felt like crying.
“You’re right.” she said.
“You’re damned right I am.”
“This entire thing—our getting on that plane in the first place, and now our getting stuck here is—just, what’s the word? Karnna.”
Chase could hardly believe it. Annie, holding out an olive branch? It seemed inconceivable but hell, most of what had happened during the past forty-eight hours fell into th
at very same category. If it was an olive branch, what did he have to lose if he accepted it? If he was going to spend the night in that rocker—and he was—it would be a lot better for the both of them if they weren’t at each other’s throats.
“Karma,” he said, as he lifted his hands from her shoulders. “Don’t tell me. You’re taking a course in Eastern religions.”
Annie smiled and shook her head. “I bought a computer. That’s what the guy who installed it said. It’s karma if you can get a computer to work right, and karma if you can’t.”
“You bought yourself a computer?”
“For business. But it’s turned out to be fun, too. The Internet, that kind of thing.”
“Uh-huh. Who showed you how to use it? The pan...Hoffman?”
“I taught myself. Well, with a little help from Dawn.”
“Really.” Chase smiled. “Maybe you’ll give me some pointers, sometime. I’m still all thumbs at anything more complicated than punching up a spreadsheet.”
“Sure.”
Their eyes met and held, and then Chase made a show of looking around at the room. “I’m really sorry about this. The accommodations, I mean. I never dreamed Tanaka would dump us out here.”
“It’s a bit much, I admit.” Annie smiled. “But it’s beautiful, too. Maybe this is what hotels are like, wherever it is he comes from.”
Chase grinned. “He’s from Dallas, babe—I mean, Annie. No, I suspect he figured we wanted to spend some private time together.”
Annie laughed. “Cupid Tanaka, huh?”
“So it would seem.”
Again, silence closed around them. Annie sat down on the edge of the rocker.
“So,” she said briskly, “what’re you going to do? Tear this place down, then build the retreat he wants from scratch?”
“Something like that.”
“I’ll bet the final result will be spectacular.”
“Livable, anyway,” Chase said, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms.
Annie smiled. “Don’t be modest, Chase. I know your work is well thought of. I see your name—the company’s name—in the papers all the time. You’ve made it to the top.”
“So they tell me.” His tone was flat, and so was his smile. “To tell you the truth, the only thing I’ve noticed is that if that’s where I am, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“Are you?”
She stared at him. Why was she hesitating? Of course, she was happy. She had her house. Her business. Friends. Interests. A life that was comfortable, not one in which she was expected to play a role.
“Annie?”
She looked up. Chase had moved closer. She had only to reach out her hand, if she wanted to touch him.
“Are you happy?” he asked softly.
She wanted to say that she was. To tell him what she’d just told herself, how her life had taken on shape and meaning.
Instead she found herself thinking how wonderful it had felt when they’d kissed. She wanted to tell him that though she’d made a good life for herself, there was an emptiness to it that she hadn’t even been aware of until she’d gone into his arms on the dance floor.
But to say any of that would have been stupid. Chase was out of her life; she was out of his. That was the way they both wanted it. Hadn’t they proved that a few hours ago, when they’d gone at each other, hammer and tong? Whatever she thought she’d felt since the wedding was an aberration.
“Yes,” she said, with a smile that felt as if it were stretching her lips grotesquely, “certainly, I’m happy. I’ve never been more content in my life.”
A curtain seemed to drop over Chase’s eyes.
“Of course,” he said politely. “You’re happy, with your business and your fiancé.”
Annie nodded. “And so are you.”
“Yeah. And so am I.”
They looked at each other and then Chase walked to the door.
“Well,” he said briskly, “I think I’ll go check out the refrigerator. There’s bound to be enough food for a couple of meals there, or in the freezer.”
“All the conveniences, hmm? Even way out here.”
“Everybody’s got a different definition of roughing it, I guess.”
“So I see. If you’d told me we’d end up in a cabin on an island a million miles from civilization, I’d have imagined a one-room shack with a propane stove on the porch and an outhouse in the back.”
Chase smiled. “Like the place we rented that summer after we got married. Remember? The outdoor sun-shower, the one-hole, no-flush John...”
Annie laughed. “How could I forget? We bought that funny set of pots and pans that were supposed to fit inside each other, and those sleeping bags...”
“Boy, we were dumb,” Chase said, laughing, too. “We must have spent, what, an hour or more trying to figure out how to zip the bags together because we sure as hell weren’t going to sleep apart...” His words trailed off. “Damn,” he said softly, “I haven’t thought of that weekend in years.”
Neither had Annie. Just remembering made her throat constrict.
“I—I think I’ll go freshen up,” she said. “And then—and then, maybe I’ll take a walk, too. Just to clear my head. The flight was so long, and—and everything’s been so hurried...”
“Yeah. Sure.” Chase swallowed dryly. “You go on. Wash up, walk around, whatever. I’ll check out the supplies.”
“I’ll come give you a hand in a few minutes.” She gave a quick, brittle laugh. “I wish I had a hairbrush with me, or even some lipstick. I feel like a complete mess.”
Chase thought of telling her the truth, that she didn’t need a brush or cosmetics because she was already more beautiful than any woman he’d ever known.
Hell, he thought, and he pulled open the door, stepped out into the hall and strode away from temptation as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHASE GLANCED at his watch.
The Tanaka Hotel wasn’t as perfect as it looked, he thought wryly. The freezer and the refrigerator had turned out to be surprisingly empty. Someone must have emptied things out, in preparation for the day the cabin would be demolished.
Still, there’d been some usable stuff in the pantry and he’d been able to come up with the makings for an improvised meal. Now, he was peeling potatoes and onions but his thoughts were elsewhere. Fifteen minutes had gone by since he’d heard the front door open, then shut as Annie had gone off on her walk.
Maybe he ought to go look for her.
Not that there was anything to worry about on this island. It was wild and isolated, but nothing here could harm her. There were no predatory animals, not of a size to be a problem. No bears, or coyotes...
Well, he supposed there probably were snakes, though the odds of Annie meeting up with one on the neatly kept gravel path that traversed the island were remote.
Spiders, though. There were definitely spiders—he’d seen some Class A specimens the first time Tanaka had brought him out here. They’d been the size of a child’s fist but they were harmless.
It was just that Annie had a thing about creepy craw-lies.
He’d learned that the winter he’d scored his first really big contract. On his way home after he’d landed the deal, he’d stopped to buy Annie a box of chocolates. There was a kid on the corner near the subway, selling single red roses; Chase had selected the prettiest one he could find and just then, he’d spied a travel agency across the street. There was a big, bright poster in the window.
Come To The Virgin Islands, it said.
Under the words was a picture of a smiling couple, holding hands under a fiery tropic sun and gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes.
Chase hadn’t hesitated. He’d trotted across the street and straight into the travel agency. A bored clerk had looked up from a scarred wooden desk.
“We’re just about to close,” she’d said. “Why
don’t you come back tomorrow and—”
“That poster. The one in the window.” He’d been too young, and too flushed with excitement, to phrase his question with any subtlety. “How much would it cost for me to take my wife to the Virgin Islands?”
The clerk had looked at the rose in his hand and the chocolates under his arm, and maybe at him, too, all youthful, eager anticipation, cleaned up but wearing, as he had in those years, the chambray shirt, jeans and work boots he felt most comfortable in. She’d sighed, but something that might have been a smile had lit her tired face.
“Come and sit down,” she’d told him. “I have a couple of packages here that just might interest you.”
So he’d gone home to Annie with one perfect red rose, a box of candy, a contract that made all his, and her, sacrifices worthwhile—and reservations at a resort on Saint John Island.
Neither the poster nor the travel agent had exaggerated the beauty of the islands. To this moment, he remembered the shock of first seeing the pale sky, white sand and crystal-clear blue water.
“It’s the color of your eyes,” he’d whispered to Annie, as he held her in his arms that first night, in their wonderful hideaway overlooking the sea. Compared to this, the place had been a shack—but oh, how happy they’d been there!
Chase smiled to himself. That night had been what he’d come to think of as the Night of the Spider.
He and Annie had made love on the secluded terrace of their little house, cocooned in a black velvet bowl of night sky.
“I love you,” he’d whispered, after she’d cried out in his arms and he’d spent himself in her silken heat. Annie had sighed and kissed him, and then they must have fallen asleep, there in the darkness with the soft whisper of the surf seeming to echo the beats of their hearts.
Sometime during the night, he’d awakened to a shriek.
“Annie?” he’d shouted, and though it had taken only a couple of seconds to race through the little house and find her in the bathroom, his adrenaline must have been pumping a mile a minute by the time he got there.
Annie, white-faced, was standing on the closed toilet, trembling with terror.
“Annie? Babe,” he’d said, pulling her into his arms. “What is it? What happened?”
The Millionaire Claims His Wife Page 11
