Shadowed Paradise

by Blair Bancroft

  “Now that depends on what he’s doin’ with it, don’t it?”

  Fortunately, the words never penetrated the solid wood of the trailer, and Claire was spared the discovery that she and the Boss were the workmen’s hottest topic of conversation. They liked Brad Blue. He was almost one of them. If he wanted an uppity woman, well, that was all right. But they hoped the two would reach an agreement soon. Brad’s temper, notoriously thin, was hanging by a thread. And they were all suffering for it.

  Claire waved goodbye to the about-to-be-retired couple she had just shown through the model, mounted the three steps to the trailer and began to enter the latest visitors in Amber Run’s new customer database. The couple had oo-ed and ah-ed and were gratifyingly cheerful about imagining carpets and kitchen appliances, a washer and a dryer. Never having been in a Key West before, they were fascinated by Claire’s short history of the Little Cracker Shack that Grew, the ecological and economical advantages of broad covered decks shading banks of easily opened windows, the added air circulation from the cupola, the beauty and pleasure of life among the tree tops.

  If only all her customers were as nice as these two from Michigan. There’d been a few who should not have strayed from the high-rise condos along the beach. With a sigh Claire noticed her Screen Saver had kicked in, proudly proclaiming Amber Run in gold lettering against an azure background. Time for a seventh-inning stretch. She retrieved a bottle of peach-flavored iced tea from the small refrigerator tucked under the counter, perched on top of her desk and gazed out the window at the activity around the nearly completed model.

  The painters had been working on the outside all day. Now, three men were lined up, their backs to Claire, surveying the finished work. Brad towered above the gray-haired construction foreman. The boss of the painting crew was easily identified by his white coverall and painter’s cap. Their feet firmly planted on the yet-to-be-sodded dirt, only their uptilted heads moved as each man conducted his own inch-by-inch examination of the woodwork as seriously as if contemplating world disarmament. Claire’s lips twitched.

  Suddenly the painter broke formation. Squatting down on one knee, he bent his head, knuckled his forehead. Claire choked. When would she stop selling the residents of Calusa County short? The painter, catching the amusement in their inspection lineup, was doing a remarkable impromptu imitation of Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker.

  Her day considerably brighter, Claire sat down at the computer, jiggled her mouse, and went back to work.

  By the end of her first week on the job Claire no longer had to resort to: “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask the developer about that. May I get back to you?” The right responses to even the most difficult questions rolled easily off her tongue. The publicity push wouldn’t begin until the model’s formal opening, but a steady trickle of visitors appeared from nothing more than the colorful Open House flags at the entrance to Amber Run. Fortunately, there were still nature lovers, boaters, and fishermen who had not been obliterated by the horde of newcomers whose image of the Florida lifestyle was concrete condo towers or endless rows of ground-hugging stucco ranches spaced twenty feet apart.

  On Claire’s fifth day on the job, she’d written her first contract. A couple from New Jersey bought the smallest of the projected three models, a home which was, at present, little more than a framework perched on stilts. But the floor plans were clear; the setting and the right price clinched the deal. Two years from retirement, the couple would lease the model back to Amber Run, covering a major portion of their monthly mortgage, thus making both Buyer and Seller equally pleased with the transaction.

  The relationship between the developer of Amber Run and his Marketing Director/Sales Manager was not as satisfactory. During one of their closely watched moments alone in the trailer Brad’s temper flared as he demanded that Claire set a date for the wedding. That night after Jamie went to bed Claire sat at home feigning interest in a Cary Grant movie, which had so captured her grandmother’s fancy that Ginny hadn’t done more than raise an eyebrow when Claire failed to rush to the Toyota for her nightly drive to Palm Court.

  While Claire waited for the phone to ring and Brad’s growl to demand where the hell she was, she gritted her teeth over the blatant, and all-too-familiar, male superiority displayed by the most suave leading man in Hollywood history. Claire kept reminding herself that Florida’s senior citizens were the perfect market for these vintage movies, but she was strongly tempted to throw something at the screen.

  By the time the movie ended, the phone had not rung. Ginny gave Claire one piercing glance and calmly said goodnight. Claire fixed a glass of iced tea, attempted to read the latest Time. The phone remained ominously silent. Three times Claire picked it up to make sure it was still working. Each time the hum of the dial tone mocked her. Twice she almost broke down and made the call herself.

  Miserable Russian cracker. He was so disgustingly superior, so completely confident he knew best. She wouldn’t be pushed. Absolutely, positively not.

  The phone never rang. Claire’s pillowcase was so soaked by tears she had to crawl out of bed and change it before she finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

  When Claire opened the trailer door at ten the next morning, Brad was waiting for her. As she slipped by him, taking refuge behind her computer console, he turned the deadbolt, placed his back against the door, folded his arms across his chest. “So what games are we playing now?” he inquired coolly.

  “I’m sorry,” Claire ground out. “It was childish, but you’re being so damn stubborn . . .”

  “Stubborn! Me?”

  “Why can’t we just go on as we are—for a little while? Give me some time? You can’t imagine the hurt . . .”

  Brad raised one blond brow. “Really?”

  Claire, recalling that he had come home after a long, undoubtedly dangerous mission to find his wife had left him, clenched her hands in her lap and was silent.

  “Okay,” Brad conceded, “Phil’s still alive and I’ve never had a child kidnapped, but children happen to be very high on my list of priorities. I want a wife, kids, dogs, cats, carpools, the whole nine yards. I’ve waited so damn long, I don’t feel like spending any more time watching only the grass grow.”

  Brad’s shoulders parted company with the door. In two steps he was towering over her. “I want you in my bed. Every night. I want my wife in my bed every night. And,” he added with ominous emphasis, “if I don’t have you in my bed every night, I’ll damn well have you when I can get you.”

  With a feral growl low in his throat, Brad hauled Claire out of her chair. Or had she sprung at him, hormones raging, like some love-starved maniac? In a wild flurry of lowered jeans and upthrust skirt, backed against the battered old desk in a position Claire would have sworn was physically impossible, they came together as if they had been apart for a century. Only later would Claire feel the ridge gouged into her back by the edge of the desk as they were swept by a kaleidoscope of frenzy, passion, guilt, remorse, and downright lust melding into a blinding climax that swept them both into a vortex of sensation where problems did not exist and love, once again, obliterated all.

  The trailer rocked.

  The workmen smirked.

  The issue of marriage remained unresolved.

  Even two days later memory of what they’d done—and how and where—caused a slow burn to creep up Claire’s neck. How naive could she be? Just because Jim never . . .

  No matter. At the moment Brad was tip-toeing around the marriage issue, and that was what she wanted. Wasn’t it? Who knew better than she that the reward for blind faith could be betrayal? Of love and trust. Of life itself.

  She could still see the dark suits, the precise ties, the uncompromising faces. Hear the endless questions . . . Come on, Claire, you were at Jake Chelsea’s houseparty in the Hamptons . . . Bastard buys more arms and ammo than most governments. You can’t possibly say you didn’t know what he does for a living.
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  “Hello, Claire.”

  It wasn’t possible. She had conjured him from an overactive imagination. She’d heard no car, no sound of feet on the wooden steps. The door simply opened, and her worst nightmares became reality.

  Claire blinked, hoping the dark shadow in the doorway would go away. But he was still there. Brown hair, blue eyes, innocuous boy-next-door face. But unlike the image in her memory, he was wearing the Florida businessman’s summer uniform of dark trousers and long-sleeved white shirt. Although the best of the alphabet agents, Doug Chalmers was still high on the list of people Claire never wanted to see again.

  “Doug,” Claire acknowledged faintly. “Aren’t you a bit far from your territory?”

  “Special assignment,” Chalmers returned easily, “and not what you’re thinking.” He stepped into the trailer, allowing another man, a stranger, to step in behind him. Doug introduced him as Paul Markham, an FBI agent working out of the office in Manatee Bay.

  “So?” Claire inquired after a cool acknowledgment of the local agent.

  “I hear you may have run into a stalker,” Doug said.

  Claire simply stared at him. “You came all the way here,” she said, totally incredulous, “because of the incident at the mall?”

  “Close,” Chalmers admitted with a slight shrug. “We’re still trying to make cases against the wiseguys who did business with InterBank. Someone named Brad Blue contacted the agency, thought we ought to know what happened. Evidently, he has some powerful connections, enough to get instant attention. Blue felt we ought to consider the possibility your experience could be related to a much older problem than some local stalker. Let’s face it, the other side is probably just as certain as my bosses are that you know more than you’re telling.”

  “It’s over,” Claire cried. “Done. Can’t they see that?”

  “So maybe I’m convinced,” Chalmers admitted. “Others aren’t.”

  No! This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She’d escaped. She was free. The nightmare couldn’t be starting up again.

  Brad brought this curse down upon her head.

  “It was probably nothing, nothing at all,” she protested feebly.

  “If there’s one thing I learned about you, Claire, it’s that you’re not inclined to exaggerate,” Chalmers replied gravely. “You’re level-headed . . . and a hell of lot tougher than you look.”

  “I guess that’s a compliment,” Claire murmured. Grudgingly.

  “We think what happened to you is worth investigating,” Doug added, “which I why I brought Paul along with me. He’ll be keeping an eye on the situation.”

  A blast of sunlight and hot air flooded the trailer as Brad came in, hastily shutting the door behind him. Claire glowered at her desktop while the men introduced themselves. She was close to the point of nausea, her stomach in knots, heart pounding. Brad had betrayed her to the enemy. Not that the FBI was the enemy; intellectually, she knew that. Jim had been working with them as their chief informant on InterBank. And yet . . . he hadn’t delivered the goods. He hadn’t lived to take the witness stand, and in the end she had lost it all—husband, house, Manhattan apartment, bank accounts, prestige . . . Respectability.

  And nearly lost Jamie as well.

  “Claire?” Brad’s voice, soft but firm, penetrated her pain.

  Overcoming a new wave of nausea, Claire forced herself to repeat the details of the incident at the mall exactly as she had told Brad. The three men nodded, glanced at each other over her bent head and pale face, and kept their questions low-key. Claire fixed her eyes on her clasped hands, barely raising her head when the two agents thanked her and left, assuring Brad they would be in touch.

  In touch. It was starting again. Another plunge into the whirlpool. And Brad, leaning back against the counter and calmly waiting for her to explode, had done this to her. His wasn’t the cruelest betrayal of the past two years, but at the moment it filled her life. How could she live with a man who at one moment so overwhelmed her that she lost all control of her passions, and then turned around and stabbed her in the back? Two days ago they had made love in a delirium of desire right in this very spot. Last night they had enjoyed the full expanse of Brad’s kingsize bed. And today?

  Today Brad Blue had joined the enemy.

  “How could you?” she whispered.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I care what happens to you,” Brad replied, meeting her hostility with resignation. “I can’t forget what I’ve been, Claire. My brain doesn’t turn off just because I’m no longer on active duty. It seemed necessary to examine every possibility, including your past coming back to haunt you.”

  “Have you any idea what the sight of Doug Chalmers does to me?” Claire hissed. “And he was the best of the lot. I was almost free, Brad. Free at last. I was beginning to put it all behind me.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Claire, but I don’t regret calling them in.” Brad shifted his weight as if about to reach out and touch her. Instead, he leaned back, planting his hands firmly on the counter behind him. “Bad memories are better than being dead,” he drawled. “It so happens I don’t want to lose you.”

  “That’s just great,” Claire mocked, her spirit beginning to revive. “We’ve got the FBI and InterBank wiseguys on one side and a stalker and a serial killer on the other. And you think we should get married in the midst of all this!”

  “How can we not?”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If you’re my wife, I can do a damn sight better job of protecting you against stalkers, killers, and the FBI.”

  “What a delightful reason for getting married.” Acidity vibrated between them.

  Brad had promised himself he wouldn’t push, wouldn’t lose his temper, but the woman was enough to drive a saint wild. Goaded beyond endurance, he replied in kind. “Look, Claire, people marry every day for sex, wealth, power or just for the hell of it.” He was standing away from the counter now, towering over her, eyes sparking fire. “So why shouldn’t we get married for all the wrong reasons too? God knows I’ve already argued love and family ad nauseam and look what it’s got me.”

  Claire raised her chin, answering the fire in his eye with sparks of her own. So why not strike a bargain? Romance was for idiots. Pragmatism ruled the world. “You could keep Doug and what’s-his-name off my back?”

  “Yes.”

  “While protecting me from stalkers, stranglers, and assorted Florida beasties?”

  Stoically ignoring the dripping sarcasm, Brad gave a curt nod. “Right.”

  “How nice,” Claire breathed from between clenched teeth. Then again, he just might be able to pull it off. Doug Chalmers was the final crushing blow. She could no longer fight the world alone.

  Claire tilted her head to one side, made a leisurely examination of her knight in blue jeans, from blond pony tail to scuffed and sandy boots. “Then I’ll marry you as soon as the law allows,” she said. Coldly. Cynically. Mrs. James Langdon of Central Park East grandly offering employment to a mercenary.

  Chapter Twenty

  He was ten feet tall. Facing off with Brad Blue. And winning. Each day he didn’t hear the snap of cold steel, feel the cuffs closing round his wrist, he was winning. And he had plans. Big plans. Brad Blue, macho ex-jock, was about to learn a new kind of end run. He could chase around all he wanted, looking for men without mothers. It wouldn’t matter a damn.

  Oh, yeah, it was fourth down, baby, and no way in hell was he going to punt. He was going to sack ol’ Brad where it really hurt. First one. Then the other. After that, he didn’t give a shit. Maybe he’d luck out and go down in a blaze of bullets. Yeah, that would be good. No cold steel, no iron bars, no brightly lit courtrooms, hard-eyed jurors, nasty prosecuting attorneys, television cameras, reporters.

  Or worse yet . . . maybe there wouldn’t be a trial. Just an endless array of white coats. Doctors . . . peering, poking, prying. Electric shocks . . . he’d read they were doing that again these day
s. What about padded cells . . . did they still have those? Rubber hoses? Lobotomies?

  Or was it all cutesy arts and crafts? Soft couches, sweet music . . . women. Sure, even at the funny farm there’d be women. Not a bad thought. He liked women. Girls. Any and all.

  As long as they were dead.

  Claire stood in the middle of the model’s main living area and simply stared. The past week had been filled with frantic activity to get the model ready to meet the advertising promotion deadline. So much so, it had been almost impossible for potential customers to view the house under bustling layers of tile men, cabinet installers, carpet layers, brawny delivery men struggling up the stairs with stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer and dryer. Nor had Claire’s needs been forgotten. There was a designer desk and chair, a sleek computer console and a pair of white wicker armchairs intended to make customers comfortable while being relieved of their money.

  And now, at last, it was finished. The central living area was one vast open space with greatroom, dining room, kitchen and breakfast area defined solely by countertops and a wall of kitchen cabinets. The model was light and spacious and about as close to the ideal of Florida living as it was possible to get. Beneath Claire’s feet antiqued beige ceramic tile glowed warmly in the sunlight that filtered in through the classic sash windows. At the far end of the kitchen the breakfast area overlooked the screened rear deck. Beyond that was a panorama of oaks and pines leading down to the river a hundred feet away. Beside the greatroom’s stone fireplace, French doors were set into a wall of glass above the pool area. Three bedrooms, carpeted in soft shades of salmon, peach and ivory, opened off the greatroom complex, as did the staircase of polished ash leading to the den-sized aerie in the cupola above.

  Amber Run’s first model was a triumph of nineteenth century Florida living brought to rebirth in vivid modern design, a deliberate effort to blend the charm and practicality of the past with the latest in modern conveniences. Breathtakingly beautiful. Practical. Utterly desirable.