by Diana Palmer
“I’m a businessman,” he said vaguely.
“I know, but—”
He lifted a big finger and pressed it to her lips. “Not now,” he said gently. “I think I like it better this way for the time being.”
“Are you a Russian spy?” she teased. “A Martian scout?”
He chuckled softly, “I’m a hardworking man on holiday.”
“You look as though you could use one,” she remarked as they walked along the narrow street that ran along the docks. It wasn’t really wide enough for cars to park alongside it and still let traffic through, but by some miracle of navigation, the most incredibly large automobiles were able to squeeze through the narrow street. And tourists soon learned how to press back against the buildings to keep from being separated from their toes.
“Isn’t this fun?” Nikki laughed.
“Speak for yourself,” Cal grumbled, trying to fit his bulk alongside hers as a pink Cadillac slid past them.
“How did you get to be so big, anyway?” she asked him.
“My father was a Dutchman—from Friesland originally, as a matter of fact. A giant of a man from a land of large people. My mother was French.”
“How in the world did you wind up in Chicago, then?” she asked, fascinated.
“I was born in the middle of the war,” he explained. “My father had left Holland with his division to take part in the Allied invasion of Europe. He met my mother in France. They married and I was born the same year. They came to America because of me, I was told,” he added with a dry laugh. “There were no opportunities in Europe after the war, unless you were involved in the black market. My father had the idea that Chicago was as close as he would ever get to paradise. He settled down, got an engineering job with one of the auto makers, made a few minor investments and let himself be talked into some stock in an oil rig.”
“And lost his shirt, I imagine,” she teased.
“Not quite.” He paused at one of the straw vendors’ stalls. “This sun’s getting hot. How about a hat?”
“Only if you get one, too,” she replied. “I don’t want to walk around alone in a hat.”
“And you call yourself a reporter,” he chided. “Where’s your spirit of nonconformity? The hell with what people think. Let them worry about what you think, for God’s sake.”
She flushed uncomfortably, “I’m an introvert by nature,” she admitted reluctantly. “Everything past, ‘Hi, my name’s Nicole!’ is pure bravado.”
He searched her soft eyes, smiling. “No one would ever suspect it,” he murmured. “You’re not a bad actress.”
“Then why was I turned down for the lead in our school play?” she asked unblinkingly.
“What was your school play?”
She grinned. “King Lear.”
He chuckled deeply. “What was the matter—couldn’t you grow a beard?”
“You guessed it.” She reached out and touched one of the patterned straw hats, done in royal blue and yellow flowers with green petals and little red buds. “Isn’t it lovely?” she murmured.
He picked it up and handed it to her, choosing a plain tan one with no frills for himself. He handed the smiling vendor a big bill and waved away the change and the thanks.
“That was nice of you,” she said as they walked away, with her new hat perched jauntily on her dark head.
“You’re welcome. It suits you,” he added with a grin.
“That, too, but I meant letting the woman keep the change. I asked one of them how long it took to make one of those big straw purses, and she said it was a day’s work. Most people like to bargain until they get the price down to almost nothing.”
She felt his eyes on her, although he didn’t say anything. Perhaps he was remembering what she’d left unsaid in the restaurant last night—that she knew what it was to be without.
“Do you like old things?” he asked suddenly.
“I’m hanging around with you, aren’t I?” she replied blandly.
He glared at her. “Old things, madam, old things. How would you like to see a fort?”
“I saw Fort Charlotte yesterday,” she recalled. “But I don’t mind going again...”
“Fort Fincastle,” he interrupted.
“Fincastle? Oh, that was the one I didn’t get to see,” she murmured. “The tour guide didn’t want to have to drive up that enormous steep hill. He said it wasn’t worth looking at, anyway.”
He looked irritated. “It most certainly is. Come on. We’ll get one of those picturesque little carriages. You’ll like that—it’s right up your alley.”
“How disappointing that we can’t take a jet to it,” she returned with a grin. “That would be more your style.”
“Keep it up and I won’t feed you lunch.”
“That,” she said, “is blackmail.”
“Persuasion,” he corrected. “I hope you’re up to the climb, you delicate little thing.”
“I hope you don’t mean we have to do any mountain climbing,” she murmured, glancing down at her flat sandals. “These weren’t designed for climbing.”
“There are steps. Come on, honey, let’s get going. I’ve got a conference at three o’clock with the Minister of Architecture.”
“Going to build something, are you?” she asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, scanning the area for the carriages. “A hotel. The biggest and best the out islands have ever seen, complete with hot tubs, saunas, a built-in spa, lounge and a shopping center.”
Strange, he didn’t look like an architect. But then, she thought, what did he look like?
He hailed a carriage and helped her in, the conveyance groaning under his formidable weight as he settled in beside her.
“This is how you get the best tours of Nassau,” he told her, and settled back as their driver began to give them a brief history of Nassau, highlighting it with stories of pirates and the first governor, Woodes Rogers, who drove them out and made Nassau safe for its residents.
As they passed the Christ Church Cathedral, with its beautiful wrought iron fenced courtyard and masses of tropical flowers in bloom, the guide told them that the first building had been erected in 1670. It was destroyed by the Spaniards in 1684 and rebuilt in 1695. It was destroyed again by invading Spaniards in 1703. The third church, built of wood, was built in 1724 but had to be replaced in 1753 with cut stone. The fifth church, the present one, opened in 1841.
“The tower there,” the guide added, “is all that remains of the fourth church.”
“It’s beautiful,” Nikki remarked, and wished they had time to go inside.
“We’ll come back,” Cal assured her. “The inside is a treat to the eyes.”
“You’ve been inside?” she asked him.
He nodded. But he didn’t say anything more, leaving the talking to the guide as they went past a huge silk cotton tree, old buildings, landmarks and flowering hibiscus, bougainvillea, and towering poinciana trees with their wild orange flowers that lined the way to the fort.
Minutes later the driver pulled up in front of a grove of towering trees with limbs almost interwoven to make an arch leading to a barely visible set of steps far in the distance.
Cal helped her out and took her arm to guide her along. Other tourists were gathered at the base of the steps, and Nikki realized with a sense of smothered terror that along with the stone staircase was a waterfall.
Her voice stuck in her throat as Cal, who had no idea what the sound of a waterfall would do to her, carried her along beside him, murmuring something about a water tower at the top of the staircase.
Nikki felt her muscles contract as they neared the steps, as she saw the water cascading down two levels of stone beside the steps, and the sound of it was like no other sound to her sensitive ears.
With that sound came another—the sound of a f
lood raging over the earthen dam on the river. The sound of the water breaking it, bursting through in a foaming muddy wall to overwhelm the small houses nearby where twelve people, sleeping, unaware of the dam break, would never wake up again.
They were almost upon it now; the water was everywhere. She saw the television film of the flooding, the muddy debris, Leda’s open eyes staring up at her...
“No!” she moaned, freezing in place with her eyes mirroring the terror knotted in her stomach.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE TURNED TO HER, catching her by both arms. “You’re pale,” he said gently. “What is it—the crowd?”
“The...waterfall,” she whispered shakenly. “Silly, but I...I can’t stand it. Please, let me go.”
He turned her with one smooth motion and marched her back off to the carriage, where he put her in back and climbed in beside her with the agility of a much younger man, motioning the carriage driver to go ahead.
She felt a big arm go around her shoulders, felt a shoulder under silky fabric against her cheek as he held her quietly, without asking a single question.
They were back in the city before she got her breath again and moved reluctantly away from that comforting arm.
“Which was it, a flood or a hurricane?” he asked shrewdly, studying her face with narrowed eyes.
“A flood,” she replied. “Isn’t it insane? I don’t mind the surf or the beach at all. But if I go near a waterfall or a river, I get sick to my hose.”
“Have you talked about it?” he persisted.
“Only to my uncle,” she said quietly. “He’s edited the paper for fifteen years. Before that he worked on a big city daily as a police reporter. But the job has made him hard. I don’t think he really understood what it did to me.”
“Suppose we go back to the hotel, get into our swimming gear and lie on the beach for a while?” he asked. “And you can tell me all about it.”
Her pale eyes flashed up to his and locked there. “Your conference...”
“Isn’t for several hours yet,” he reminded her. He searched her troubled eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you how dangerous it is to bottle things up inside?”
“I’m...” She stared at the passing businesses, the tall hotels. “I’m not used to talking about myself.”
“Neither am I, but you’ve managed to drag more out of me in two days than most of my associates have in ten years.” He looked as if that amused him greatly, but his eyes were kind. Dark and full of secrets.
She stared straight ahead at his shirt where the buttons were loose, at a patch of bronzed chest and curling dark hairs. “I could use a swim,” she murmured.
“So could I.” He chuckled. “It gets hot out here.”
“Now, that it does,” the driver agreed, glancing back to make sure his passengers were okay. He hadn’t made a remark up until then, but Nikki had sensed concern, and now she saw it in his dark eyes.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Just too much sun, I think.”
“You get used to it,” he replied dryly.
To the sun, yes, she thought, but how about tragedy? Did it ever completely leave? Did the horrible images of it ever fade? She had her doubts.
The beach wasn’t even crowded when they laid their towels and robes down on the loungers under the little thatched roof shelter.
Nikki had bought herself a towel in the hotel shop, and apparently Cal had his own—a tremendously big white one with the initials CRS in one corner. She pondered on those all the way down in the elevator. The initials, oil, investments, all of it, added to his unusual parentage, seemed to ring bells far back in her mind, but she couldn’t make them into a recognizable melody.
She laid her green caftan on the lounger as Cal stripped off his colorful blue beach shirt. Clad only in white trunks, he was enough to make any woman sit up and stare. His broad chest was powerfully muscled, with a wedge of thick, dark hair curling over the bronzed muscles down to the trunks that covered lean hips and led down to legs like tree trunks. He was the most fascinating man Nikki had ever seen, and she couldn’t help the stare that told him so.
He chuckled at the expression on her face. “They do wear swimming trunks in Georgia?” he teased.
“Huh? Who?” she murmured.
“Men.”
“Uh, oh yes,” she stammered, flushing. She pulled her chair out into the sun and stretched out on it to drink in the warm, bright sunlight.
Cal stretched out beside her on his own chair with a heavy sigh, his dark eyes sliding down the length of her slender body in the clinging white bathing suit.
“That’s the only thing I’ve seen you wear that suits you,” he remarked.
She turned her head on the lounger and met his dark, searching gaze with an impact that sent tremors like miniature earthquakes through her body. Without the civilizing veneer of outer clothing he was as sensuous as a cologne commercial.
“I can hardly go around in a bathing suit all my life.” She laughed, trying to make her voice sound light.
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. His eyes swept over her critically. “That deep, low neckline gives you more fullness, and the color brings out your tan and those fantastic eyes. Your legs are your main asset—long and smooth and delectable.”
She swallowed nervously. He made her feel positively threatened. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep from folding her arms across her small breasts.
“Don’t look so embarrassed,” he said gently. “You’ve got a good body, small breasts and all, but you could dress it better.”
Her face went rouge red. “Cal!” she burst out.
He threw back his dark head and laughed. “My God, talk about repressed areas... Don’t you date at all?”
“Well, yes, I do, but most of my dates don’t give blow-by-blow accounts of my measurements,” she said, exasperated.
“You make me feel a hundred.” He sighed musingly.
“How old are you?” she probed gently, her eyes wide and curious.
“Does it matter?” he countered, his eyes watchful.
“No. I’m just curious.”
“I’m thirty-eight,” he replied, and for an instant time seemed to hang while he waited with impatient interest for her reaction.
“Well?” he prodded shortly.
“What would you like, a rousing cheer?” she asked with arched brows. “Congratulations on having escaped middle-aged spread? An invitation to do a centerfold...?”
His face relaxed into a muffled smile, and he lay back down, shaking his head.
“Better watch out,” she warned under her breath. “That’s the second time you’ve smiled in five minutes. Your face may break.”
He drew in a deep, relaxed breath and smiled a third time. “You make me feel as if I’ve only started breathing again, Georgia,” he replied quietly. “I’m finding light in my darkest corners.”
“It’s the atmosphere, not me,” she denied, stretching. “You just needed a push out the door.”
“I’d like to know about the flood,” he said after a minute.
She opened her eyes, riveting them to the curling white foam against that crystal clear aquamarine water, to the swimmers knifing through the silky water.
“We’ve had flash floods all my life,” she began slowly. “But the dam always kept them from amounting to much. It was sturdy and had withstood floods for forty years or more, so nobody worried about heavy rains. Until three weeks ago,” she added quietly. “The dam broke in the night, and water shot over it like water over the falls, one man who saw it happen told us later. Tons and tons of muddy water swept along the riverbed, overflowed and washed over a subdivision on its banks. One of the victims was my best friend, Leda Hall. I got there,” she said, her voice going light, “just as the rescue people were dragging her out of a pile of de
bris that had lodged under a bridge downstream.” Her voice broke, and she waited until it steadied before she spoke again, with images of that horrible morning flashing like specters through her mind. “She was covered with mud, like something barely human. But the worst of it was when one of the neighbors said that they’d heard screams from under that bridge for hours after the impact. I...I couldn’t stop thinking that she might have been hurt, and in pain...but nobody could find her in the dark, you see, in all that debris.” Tears rolled down her smooth cheeks. “It haunts me...”
He reached over and caught her fingers in his, pressing them gently. “How in God’s name did you ever get into reporting?” he asked quietly. “You don’t have the emotional makeup for it, honey. You aren’t hard enough.”
She wiped the tears on the hem of her caftan and laughed wetly. “I’m not good for much, am I? Not hard enough for holiday affairs, not hard enough to be a reporter...”
“We could work on that first one,” he said in a new, different tone.
She turned to find his eyes tracing the soft lines of her face, slow and dark and sensuous.
“Care for a swim?” he murmured.
She nodded, feeling as if she’d had the floor taken abruptly out from under her.
He stood up, waiting for her to precede him into the water before he followed suit.
They swam lazily for several minutes before he surfaced beside her, slinging water out of his eyes. His lashes were beaded with salty water, and she noticed how thick they were, almost as thick as her own.
“Feeling better?” he asked. Standing on the sandy bottom, he towered over her while she tried to keep both feet balanced in the swell of the tide as a powerboat went past with a roar.
“Much.” She nodded. “Thank you.”
“For listening?” he asked. “Or for taking your mind off it?” he added with a wicked smile.
So it had been a joke, but she wasn’t laughing. She bit off a theatrical giggle. “Oh, it did that.”
Before she had the words out, his big hands clamped onto her waist and dragged her body fully against his, holding it so that she felt the strength of the powerful muscles crushing her breasts, her thighs. She gasped at the suddenness of the move, at the new angle of seeing his eyes from inches away instead of feet.