Shadowed Paradise

by Blair Bancroft

  Sure, why the hell not? Diane thought, tossing a curt nod in the waiter’s direction. What was one too many after she’d walked off her job? She’d steamed her way through the six o’clock news, staged a dying swan routine for the producer and simply walked out, leaving her co-anchor Kevin Johnson to pick up the pieces.

  Holy shit, but the guilt trip was delicious! They’d never fire her. The camera loved her. Audiences loved her. She wasn’t going to be in this Florida backwater for long. Cultural capital of Florida, hell! She was for Miami. Or Philly. Maybe even Atlanta. Just a couple of more stepping stones, and it was New York, New York, make way for Diane Lake.

  But Brad Blue? Diane’s lips curled. Brad was dead meat. Hang up on her, would he? Return her gifts? Nobody did that to Diane Lake. He’d be back. On his knees. Crawling. Meanwhile . . . there were other fish in the sea. Even tougher challenges. After all, she was Diane Lake and the world was at her feet. Anything was possible.

  “Dear girl, you’re looking particularly bitchy this evening.” Jordan Lovell slid into the seat across from her.

  “You’re late, she said shortly.” Diane had long since given up trying to charm Jordan Lovell. But his sharp intellect and waspish tongue made him an excellent sounding board for her rage.

  “We can’t all be television newscasters, darling,” he assured her sweetly. “Some of us actually work for a living.”

  Diane eyed Jordan with an odd mix of distaste and admiration. “That’s what I like about you, Jordan. You’re such a son of a bitch.”

  Lovell posed his head to one side, considering her remark. “You may be right,” he conceded before turning to the waiter who had immediately appeared at his side. After ordering his drink, he regarded Diane with raised brows. “Now do tell what was so urgent you finessed the eleven o’clock news.”

  Now that she was being given the opportunity to vent, Diane found it harder than she’d imagined. She, the golden girl whose words rode trippingly off her tongue, was suddenly having difficultly revealing the depth of her humiliation.

  When Diane remained fascinated by the olive in her drink, Jordan shook his head in mock disbelief. “You’re not still obsessing on Brad Blue? Give it up. The man’s gone. There’s a line a mile long waiting to take his place. In fact . . .” A satisfied smile lit Jordan’s handsome features as an idea struck him. “In fact, you might try for Garrett. He’s the one with the megabucks, darling, not to mention a rising political career. Mrs. Governor Whitlaw, how does that appeal?”

  Jordan might have saved his breath. Diane never heard him. “He sent back my gifts, the bastard. Every one. They were delivered by courier this morning.”

  Jordan leaned forward, eyes avid with curiosity. “So tell me, darling, just what did you send Mr. Macho of Calusa County?”

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Diane raised her head, a lock of shining blond hair falling over her forehead to dangle enticingly in front of one eye. “Would you care to see them?” she inquired huskily. “I’m afraid they’re scattered all over the condo. Just where I threw them this morning. Want to take a look?”

  “Don’t start with me, girl,” Jordan warned with lazy indifference. “I’m immune, remember?” Which was not quite true, but it was the image he took great care to project. “I’m willing to listen to your woes, not become one of them.”

  “God, Jordan, you’re such a shit!” Diane exploded. “I can never tell what you’re really thinking, and that pisses me off. It really does.” She glared at him over the rim of her glass.

  Lovell leaned forward, eyes alight with salacious amusement. “Diane, my dear, do tell. What creative little tokens of affection did you send Little Boy Blue?”

  Diane’s spirits began to pick up. A game, a dash of prurient nonsense was just what she needed. And maybe just what Mr. Blasé Lovell needed too. A challenge, that’s what the man was. A 24-carat tantalizing dare. Perhaps he wasn’t a lost cause, after all. Tempting Jordan Lovell into bed could be the ultimate sexual achievement. Proof she was still as good as she thought she was.

  Diane pushed aside her empty glass and leaned across the small table until her forehead was only inches from his. “Well,” she purred, letting her eyes roam from his perfectly groomed silver-frosted brown hair, down his patrician forehead and Roman nose to the inviting curve of his well-shaped lips, “the first thing I sent was a bottle of Halston’s Catalyst. I thought the sentiment appropriate.”

  “Appropriate maybe, but it seems to have backfired,” Jordan replied unfeelingly. “The only reaction you got was Brad moving in the opposite direction. Maybe you should have tried one called Lust.”

  Diane swore feelingly. “And then,” she continued grimly, “I sent him a set of those fruit-flavored body gels. You know . . . the kind you’re supposed to lick off.” She projected her best come-hither smile across the scant inches separating them only to find Jordan’s face as carefully blank and unresponsive as ever.

  “Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it,” she murmured, repressing her annoyance. Mucho bragging rights to the female who broke through Jordan’s highly polished veneer of indifference. With the full power of her professional charisma, Diane smiled directly into his eyes. “My offer’s still open,” she purred.

  Jordan smiled right back, his deep reserve detectable only in the depths of his blue-gray eyes. “Tempt me, darling. Who knows? The night is young.”

  The pace of the game was increasing, Diane in hot pursuit of her quarry. “You might like the beachwear,” she suggested with a sultry quirk of her lips. “A shiny black penis sheath guaranteed to get you arrested almost anywhere but the south of France.”

  Jordan grinned. “Tell me more,” he urged softly. Appreciatively. Even as he damned her for getting a reaction out of him. He was getting hard, and Jordan Lovell didn’t let anyone have that power over him.

  Diane’s amber eyes flashed. She was suddenly more intrigued by her game with Lovell than by her rage with Brad Blue. “What sent Brad over the edge,” she confided, “was the handcuffs. Black leather with studs and a nice long chain. God, I wish I’d seen his face when he opened it. They must have arrived yesterday because the courier brought everything back this morning.”

  “Were they for you? Or for him?”

  “For me,” Diane admitted. “I thought he might be intrigued by the opportunity to punish me for being naughty.” Abruptly, she sat up, tossed back her hair. “He’s no saint, you know. That man must have been everywhere and done everything there is to do. What he sees in Mrs. Milk Toast, I can’t imagine.”

  “Maybe you should have planned to use the cuffs on him,” Jordan suggested. “And invited me to watch.

  “Is that what you are?” Diane hissed incredulously. “A voyeur? God, that’s sick!” And such a waste.

  “No, darling, not really. But Blue’s so overpoweringly macho I can’t help but savor the idea of seeing him helpless.”

  Their waiter, recognizing his customers’ body language, hastened over to take their order for dinner. They had finished their baked stuffed shrimp and were sipping Jägermeister when Jordan said, “I don’t like many people, Diane, but I must confess you fascinate me. You’re bright and feisty and know what you want. And go after it with no holds barred. Maybe you want to see if you can tempt me into bed to soothe your wounded ego, but mostly you asked me here because I’m like a eunuch. Someone safe you can talk to, someone you can bitch to and I’ll only admire your style. So, dear girl, I’m going to give you a bit of advice.”

  Diane opened her mouth to tell him what he could do with his advice . . . and promptly shut it. If she’d wanted to bitch to a silent partner, she could have vented to her condo walls, as she had when she’d shattered Catalyst against a wall mirror, leaving her living room covered with shards of silver and glass and reeking of men’s cologne. She had stormed out without cleaning up the mess and was now faced with returning to the almost unlivable consequences of her temper tantrum.

  “You have to decide just how much
Blue means to you,” Jordan was saying. “Is it your vanity that’s hurt? Or your heart? Are you simply angry, or do you actually want to spend your life with the man? From what I’ve heard about Claire Langdon, I’d say the Blue is ready to settle down, get married, change diapers, the whole nine yards. Can you compete with that? Do you want to compete with that?”

  Around them the polite chatter of the other diners faded away. Beyond the bank of windows beside them, the rolling green of the golf course had faded into deepening shadows as the last rays of the summer sun dropped over the horizon. Diane sat with her fingers clutching the small glass of Jäger, stunned by the simplicity of Jordan’s assessment of her relationship with Brad Blue. She’d been so hurt and angry she hadn’t thought about it at all. She had simply reacted without analyzing why. No man left Diane Lake . . . but did she actually want to marry him? No way. She had a career to carve out. Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., New York to conquer. Big cities, big time. And yet . . .

  “That wasn’t nice,” Diane muttered sullenly. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “I’m never nice, dear girl. That’s why you like me.”

  “Oh, shit!” Diane tossed off her drink in one long gulp.

  Jordan immediately signaled for a refill. “I think,” he offered, “that you should give it a rest for a while, see what happens. While you give some serious thought to whether you really want all the baggage that comes with him.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Diane conceded. The protrusion of her lower lip in anyone else would have been called a pout. On Diane Lake the look simply added to the seething sexuality she projected in an aura around her.

  They lingered a half hour dissecting mutual acquaintances, then left the club, making their goodbyes in the parking lot, each entering separate cars to return home alone. Jordan Lovell III to a home in which no woman ever set foot. Diane Lake to a high-rise condominium saturated with a scent intended for Great Beginnings rather than Shattered Endings.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The blue pickup barreled down the straight two-lane road as if Brad didn’t plan to stop ‘til they rocketed into Lake Okeechobee eighty miles due east. Claire gritted her teeth, knuckles white as she gripped her shoulder harness with both hands. This was worse, far worse, than the night Brad had skimmed the T-Bird through Golden Beach on their way to The Pelican for supper. That Brad drove with the casual confidence of a professional race car driver, spiced with the cool élan of the male of the species attempting to impress a female, did little to alleviate her terror. Tonight’s Brad Blue was dark and dangerous, taking his mysteriously fed fury out on his truck, on Claire’s raw nerves, on the drivers unlucky enough to be in his way.

  When Brad boosted Claire into the pickup and slammed the door behind her, he’d growled, “I have several thousand words to say to you, but I’m going to feed you first.” He rammed the gears into first. Tires spun against the shells in the driveway, crunched, then leaped for the overhung tunnel of Virginia Bentley’s private drive. As he shifted just as viciously into second, he added, ominously, “No sense in curdling perfectly good food.”

  The glitter in his eyes, the grim line of his mouth added to the barely leashed energy that filled the cab, leaving Claire stifled, breathless. Verging on fright. He couldn’t really be this angry because she had been putting him off. Could he? It hadn’t even been a week since she had cooperated so fully, so willingly, so—dammit!—aggressively in that memorable evening at Palm Court. Just because she hadn’t jumped back in the sack the very next night, or any of the five nights since, couldn’t have gotten him this steamed. Surely?

  Claire gasped as Brad floored the pickup, squeaking past a horse trailer with only a few yards to spare between themselves and an oncoming minivan. The van’s raucous horn pierced the heavy humidity of the early evening air. She’d lost her appetite several miles back, but she couldn’t help wondering why they were jetting east into nowhere when all the restaurants were on the Tamiami Trail or the gulf.

  Claire swallowed her question as Brad passed two more cars in the face of oncoming traffic. Even if they lived through the next few minutes, there was nothing in this direction but the Calusa River.

  After a token pause at a stop sign, the pickup shot across the last outpost of civilization, the entrance ramp to the Interstate, and kept on going, leaving all semblance of pavement, and the civilized world, behind. “That’s enough!” Claire shouted. “I don’t know what point you’re trying to make, but you’ve made it. Whatever I did—or didn’t do—I’m sorry. You can take me home now.”

  The pickup continued to fly along the road of hard-packed dirt like a fast freight through a mountain tunnel. Modern civilization gave way to Old Florida. The towering mass of trees on both sides of the road made the Bentley driveway look like a well-trimmed rose arbor. Dark pines rose above fan-shaped fronds of cabbage palms, their slender trunks dwarfed by giant live oaks whose branches formed a solid canopy overhead. Feathery willows drooped above a carpet of spiky palmetto punctuated by the graceful sway of ferns. Tree trunks and branches were scarcely visible under rioting coats of wild grape, morning glory, and ivy. Spanish moss dripped in long feathery tendrils from overhanging branches, nearly brushing the windshield of the pickup.

  It was a Florida Claire hadn’t seen before. The real Florida. The jungle at the edge of the blank space on T & T’s map of Golden Beach. The jumping off point for out back of beyond. Primitive and beautiful. Fascinated, Claire relaxed her grip on the shoulder harness, only to discover that Brad had actually slowed down, a rapidly diminishing cloud of dust drifting behind them.

  The road ended abruptly in a tumble of cracker shacks clustered on the bank of the river. Brad brought the pickup to a halt in a tree-shaded parking area between a rusting pickup and a Cadillac DeVille, a succinct statement about the wide range of patrons to be found at Bud’s Fish Camp.

  Leaving the motor running to keep the cab cool, Brad inhaled a long breath, then leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. “Dammit, Claire, I’m sorry. It’s been one hell of a day.”

  “You should be apologizing to those poor people back there on the road.”

  His head rose from the wheel, his brilliant blue eyes pinning her with that peculiar combination of superiority and disgust perfected by the male of the species. “Well, I can’t, can I? You’re all I’ve got. Come on, Claire. I’m a pro. I’m a graduate of Uncle Sam’s Drivers’ Ed. Nobody was ever in danger.”

  “Tell that to the family in the minivan.”

  “Fine. Shall we go look for them?” When his sarcasm fell into heavy silence, he pounded his fist on the wheel, then wilted into a sigh. “Okay, okay, so I lost my temper. You would too if an ex-boyfriend wouldn’t let you go.”

  “Really?” said Claire, eyes wide. “Don’t you think you should have mentioned your inclinations sooner?”

  This time Brad’s profanity was more creative. “You know what I meant,” he ground out. “Diane’s been . . . reluctant to let go. You’re playing least in sight, and to top it all, I’ve had my arm twisted into being a consultant on an interagency task force being set up by Calusa and Benton counties.

  “I don’t want to go back to the old life,” he added, the lines of his scowl showing sulky edges. “Not as some damned consultant. I don’t want Diane. I do want you. Today, I found myself batting zero. Three strikes, and my life is what’s out. And just to make the situation juicier, I’m mad as hell because I want you to work for me at Amber Run, and if you do you’re in danger. I’d like to play Mr. Macho and tell you not to worry about a little thing like a killer—just let all us professionals do our jobs and don’t worry your pretty little head none about it, ma’am—but life doesn’t seem to work that way any more.”

  Brad grabbed Claire by the shoulders, his fingers clamping into her flesh. “Do you understand what I’m saying, woman? The Realtor who was found dead two years ago was raped. So was the Siffert woman in Manatee. And now Paula Marks. Most rapists d
on’t murder their victims. It would appear we may have a real nut case on our hands. A nut case with a yen for Realtors. Dead Realtors. Are. You. Listening to me, dammit? We’re talking necrophilia here. And you wonder why I’m up tight! Don’t you realize I’d have to be crazy to let you sit my models? Yet I’m out close to a cool mil if they don’t sell.”

  “Of course you have to sell—”

  Brad cut off her protest. “And then there’s the minor problem,” he continued grimly, “of my new girlfriend who gives every evidence of being sexy and eager as hell, who gets me all hot and panting for more, then turns me off like a tap of cold water. That little experience, I can tell you, has not improved my disposition one little bit. So come down off your high horse, Ms. Langdon, and allow me my moment of temper.”

  “Moment! I’ve just spent twenty of the more hair-raising minutes of my life.”

  “Fifteen. And kindly remember how I met you. You’re supposed to trust me.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Claire grumbled, bested at last. She flung open the truck door and stalked out, never looking back. There was no sound from the other door. He wasn’t following her.

  Music drifted from a large wooden building perched on a shallow bank only a few feet above the river. Its venerable age and utilitarian design were nicely camouflaged by a two-story display of hot pink bougainvillea that covered the western wall and by the wild, jungle-like beauty of the setting. No doubt Vietnam veterans, on seeing the Calusa River experienced a nasty shiver of recognition. For here, less than ten miles from posh waterfront living, Bud’s Fish Camp was a last outpost of wilderness Florida, a place for the natives to hide out from the tourists, to mourn the good ol’ days over a pitcher of draft beer. And tell tall tales of gators and rattlesnakes and the snook that got away. Bud’s was, unfortunately, not the best kept secret in Golden Beach. Tonight, even in the heat of high summer, it was business as usual, the parking lot three-quarters full.